<p>I'm against AA as is. I would find AA based on socioeconomic status tolerable, though it still irks me a bit. Honestly, I think we should just move on to something more akin to China's GaoKao system.</p>
<p>Just because a person is a certain race doesn't, or rather, shouldn't, entitle them to anything. Minority encouragement? What -more- right does someone of the minority have to go to college than someone of the majority? Diversity? Diversity of ideas is a heck of a lot more important than skin colour or origin.</p>
<p>Biggest BS evar. Let merit speak for itself. Overcoming obstacles, academic achievement, on and on -- these are all admirable -- but I don't see how it is fair to just assume a person went through it based on their race.</p>
<p>With nearly a century after the new deal and half a century since jim crow, what has changed. Blacks today are worse off and less proud than they were in the days of Jim Crow or before. The problem is government, government is not a solution. All government does is create a realm of dependence and self doubt. Black Civil rights leaders never wanted the white mans handouts or sympathy. All they wanted was to be judged equally and be judged on there own merits alone. The majority of what they wanted was to be view by the govt as equal citizens, which they now have. Once this occurred then then wanted Blacks around America to stand up and do great things to prove to the white man that they can do a equal or better job.</p>
<p>If it were to MLK to MX, there would be no AA, they would encourage black youth to be proud and overcome their obstacles rather than accepting a handout.</p>
<p>Black America needs to wake up and start listing to conservative Blacks who actually understand the situation, such as Bill Cosby , Clarence Thomas,Walter Williams, Larry Elder, Alan Keyes, and of course Shelby Steele whom i think sums it up nicely when he says.</p>
<p>"The great ingenuity of interventions like affirmative action has not been that they give Americans a way to identify with the struggle of blacks, but that they give them a way to identify with racial virtuousness quite apart from blacks."</p>
<p>I agree with you - I don't believe in AA because I think everyone should get into school based on their own performance, not just race.</p>
<p>However, I am baffled when you say "Blacks today are worse off and less proud than they were in the days of Jim Crow or before." I can understand what you mean when you say "blacks are less proud." My generation seems to have a lack of respect for the struggles that our race has been through in order to get to the point we're at today. But to say that we're "worse off" is completely crazy. I'd personally be living in 2008 as a free woman, despite the problems we have today, than be a slave in 1800.</p>
<p>what I mean by worse off, is the future outlook. In the 1940 Blacks had a lot of hope and fight. Many Blacks in this time hated whites. Now lets move forward to 2008. The majority of blacks today don't have a lot of pride and dont really see the full picture and when people like Bill Cosby try to give them the full picture, they resent it. Or like you Emi2008, when you act different, they call you white not to make fun of you, but because they fear you. Its kind of surprising that blacks today hate whites way more than lets say a 80 or 90 year old doesn't. When i fact if you are under 23 or 24 you really cannot be mad as you most likely have no recollection of the tensions of the crack epidemic of the late 1980's. </p>
<p>you can think of it as you may. Some think its better now, but blacks lack hope, self love and determination. Some could argue those things are critical and if you don't have them you may be worse off.</p>
<p>Social programs targeted at blacks have destroyed the Black nuclear family and have made black men useless. Why have a husband when the government will reward you for having more kids as a single mother. Black men then feel self worthlessness and get angry and hostile. They portray these emotions and sometimes are to deep to deal with and they turn to violence and drugs. Then they are feared in society and always portrayed as criminals and then incarcerated. The outlook of black men then goes back to my first sentence of this paragraph as now women who choose to get married and not take govt handouts have husbands who cant find work due to the stereotype of the black man. Now this man cannot not provide for his family and again goes into a state of self worthlessness and anger. Now the women who choose to marry these men need to take the govt check and little girls and boys grow up without fathers. The boys don't know how to be fathers and men, thus the legacy continues. the girls have never had the affection of a male, whom should have been there father. As soon as they realize this need, they get the attention of men and start having kids way to early and thus the cycle continues. </p>
<p>I am white but understand black people quite well, shoot 5/10 of my friends are black and 9/10 are either black or Hispanic.</p>
<p>I believe that AA should take into account both race and class, two aspects that really cannot be wholly separated in America anyway. For example, at my college, I know many black kids who went to elite prep schools in New England (i.e. Choate and Middlesex). I certainly hope they didn't get favoured over a poor white kid or an Asian kid. But I do believe that special consideration should be given to the poor black kid from Harlem or the Hispanic kid from the slums of El Paso. </p>
<p>If this helps, this is what I think an AA hierarchy should look like (from most needy to least needy).</p>
<p>chris you put Poor African-Americans/Latinos in #1.</p>
<p>But the color of welfare and well pretty much all social programs in this country is white. The poorest people are white, the majority who don't have health care are white and so on.</p>
<p>White is 74% of this country while only 13.4% is Black. </p>
<p>Just because a small percentage of whites make huge bounties of money doesn't mean all do. Ever been to the south, the way some people live down there makes the poorest neighborhood in the north look like Beverly Hills or the Hampton's. The education systems are about the same also. Look at SAT scores between north and south states, the numbers are staggering. </p>
<p>People are suffering from every race and every background. Which is why Obama wants to change AA to include those people. Not that I would except it, but I didn't get eop or the seog and poor grants, mostly because im white. But friends of mine have gone to the same school, they are of color, they come from family's with 2 parents when i come from 1 and they got a full free ride from eop or a good portion, while my mother made less than them. My pell grant was pretty high which helped. </p>
<p>Its not really fare, such as my friend Xavier. His dad is a FedEx driver and mom a nurse. They make decent money but since he is Haitian, he got a free ride. Now his parents make more a year than my mom, and with that his parents bought him a new car and he has everything going for him. While me from a single parent household, gets almost nothing and im about 30K in debt with student loans. Fair, i don't know. But then again i don't take handouts.</p>
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I certainly hope they didn't get favoured over a poor white kid or an Asian kid.
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<p>And anybody would be a liar if he/she said they didn't. I think you insulted some kid that he's a bitter Ivy League reject, though I didnt read any of the stuff very carefully, wasn't this exactly his point?</p>
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But the color of welfare and well pretty much all social programs in this country is white. The poorest people are white, the majority who don't have health care are white and so on.
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<p>25% of the African-American population in America is deemed to be in poverty. This is from the 2004 U.S. Census. Are whites really above 25% in terms of percentage in poverty?</p>
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White is 74% of this country while only 13.4% is Black.
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<p>Okay, but don't turn this into a total numbers games instead of a percentage game. Taking that to the extreme, we could do all sorts of injustices to small groups (say, the 5% of Asians in America) and just say, "Hey, that's only X million people, whereas there's tens of millions of whites". </p>
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Look at SAT scores between north and south states, the numbers are staggering.
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<p>That's true. The white-on-white economic atrocity that spurred the creation of the American race system (in order to prevent black-white alliances against the upper classe) is something that needs to be immediately rectified. However, I still just don't think that it's quite the same, no matter how dire the economic circumstances. A poor black just has it worse than a poor white because of what DuBois called the invisible wages of race or something. </p>
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And anybody would be a liar if he/she said they didn't. I think you insulted some kid that he's a bitter Ivy League reject, though I didnt read any of the stuff very carefully, wasn't this exactly his point?
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<p>There's a difference between hoping that a black Middlesex graduate didn't get AA preference, and thinking that ALL black students are dumb white-cheating beneficiaries of AA.</p>
<p>I'll just post a simple reply and say that I do believe AA will be better if it was based on SES instead of race. IMO, a rich minority shouldn't gain preference on over a poor white person. JMO. I'm a minority btw.</p>
<p>From what I've heard at least one adcom say, they do take into account the fact that a wealthy African-American is not a typical African-American. I wish I could find the source (I'm fairly certain it was an Ivy, or at the least another top-tier school), but I just thought it worthwhile to state that this is definitely considered at at least one institution (and my guess more than one). I really do think many CCers overestimate the impact of AA, especially on undeserving students and at top colleges.</p>
<p>And I must say I'm still surprised every time I hear someone say that the system should be 100% "merit"-based where merit is defined as test scores and GPA. I suppose the people who believe that tend to be the ones who would benefit most from that system, especially those who simply don't understand what it means to not have the recipe for success handed to you on a silver platter. I'm quite fond of the American system: I think it's great to evaluate the whole candidate rather than just the numbers. Our post-secondary institutions have done fairly well for themselves, so I'm sure they know what they're doing :)</p>
<p>Dr. Horse, I do consider your situation unfair that you were offered considerably less aid money when your financial situation is clearly worse. That's really going too far. I'm not familiar with that happening often, though, so I hope it isn't more widespread.</p>
<p>It's good to know that colleges take into account SES, JoeTrumpet. Also, I agree with what you're saying about the system not being just "merit-based" in terms of only test scores. I don't believe that college admissions should be based on only test scores, and am glad it isn't, since most people with a higher SES tend to score higher than others with a lower SES do to the fact that the wealthy do have more tools and a better education, than the ones in a poor neighborhood.</p>
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since he is Haitian, he got a free ride.
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Are you absolutely sure that that had something to do with it? Most schools give little based on race, AA has very little impact in finaid generally. It's more for admissions.</p>