<p>Does anyone know if colorism extends beyond blacks? For example, Asian have lighter skin than Indians; do they face less discrimination as a result?</p>
<p>From a biological and individual psychology persepective, there is no categorization of ‘blacks, Asians, Indians, etc.’. Therefore, the ‘race’ (colorism) categorization mechanism appears to be a psychological process **all humans<a href=“at%20least%20those%20with%20visual%20systems%20intact”>/b</a> can possess.</p>
<p>The article I cited mentions cases of “colorism” in countries outside the United States. In Taiwan, it’s easy to observe that many people who pursue occupations involving work outdoors have much darker skin than other people–who may be the siblings or cousins of the dark-skinned people–who work indoors. What would be interesting to me is to see if there is any place where the majority and ruling population is dark-skinned and perhaps color prejudice operates in the other direction. I don’t know if there have been extensive tests on this issue in southern or eastern Africa, or in Melanesia, or in other places where one would find a majority of dark-skinned people. </p>
<p>Anyway, StitchInTime’s general point is correct that any such invidious prejudice as this is subject to change over time.</p>
<p><a href=“%5Burl=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060896011-post344.html]#344[/url]”>quote</a>…What would be interesting to me is to see if there is any place where the majority and ruling population is dark-skinned and perhaps color prejudice operates in the other direction…
<p>Yeah right. A wise man once said to me, “the proof is in the pudding.” Prior to AA how diverse was the country with regards to making opportunities available to those disinfranchised, and after the implementation of the various race based initiatives, how much more are those states diverse in the critical areas that the status quo most covet? I would say not very much. The places that really value diversity, ARE diverse and make significant strides to facilitate diversity happening. It’s been said, “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Look to the most powerful accesses to money, the acquisition of it, the cultivation of it, the management of it, and in this country you will see the most stratified areas in our land. The “evil” of discrimanation, and racism has denied access to the opportunities(via quality and elite education, etc) that help one acquire wealth, and perpetuate it, lies at the heart of those initiatives in those states. I challenge anyone to disprove that opinion empirically.</p>
<p>As the saying goes in the streets, “you can show me better than you can tell me”, and in your above statement Fab, is a lot of rhetoric that would be hard for you to substantiate.
Most of the cases about AA seem to be in reference to either job acquistion, government contracting, coveted secondary educational access, elite state college undergrad and post grad opportunites. All have the common denominator of helping someone create wealth. The opportunities made to people of color are crumbs in the grand scheme of this economy but creating enough animus to tie up the courts perennially. The lion’s share of this country’s wealth and access to the mechanisms to create it are overwhemingly and disproportunately controlled by the majority and for many of them, even the sparse opprtunities made available to a disinfranchised person of color(given the legacy of this country) is too much.</p>
<p>The more one tries to defend this type of thinking the more nauseated I become.</p>
<p>I stand by my statement. In 1999, Angus Reid surveyed 1,643 students in 140 different U.S. Colleges. He found that 66.7% of all respondents strongly agreed with the statement, “No one should be given special preferences in jobs or college admissions on the basis of their gender or race.” ([Source]( <a href=“http://www.nas.org/polimage.cfm?doc_Id=84&size_code=Doc]Source[/url]”>http://www.nas.org/polimage.cfm?doc_Id=84&size_code=Doc)</a>) I don’t know what other questions he asked, but something tells me that those same students highly valued racial diversity. There are no inconsistencies between valuing racial diversity and opposing racial preferences. I do not see why a person who supports diversity must support racial preferences.</p>
<p>No, I can’t empirically disprove that the intent of Connerly’s civil rights initiatives is to perpetuate discrimination and racism. I don’t have the necessary data. However, I find it highly disingenuous to suggest that those are the reasons. These initiatives seek to treat all equally without regard to race. Unless you subscribe to the disparate impact theory of discrimination, madville, I do not see how wanting to treat everyone the same implies a desire to discriminate. Rather, I see the opposite: a desire to NOT discriminate. </p>
<p>Even if the people who voted for Proposition 209 wanted more whites in higher education (i.e. perpetuating discrimination), they didn’t get it. White enrollment actually dropped at the flagship UCs in the immediate years following Proposition 209. I don’t see a critical mass of whites in California pressing for its repeal.</p>
<p>Both UCLA and UCB value racial diversity and support AA, the state just forbids them from practicing it openly. The University of California Regents board was outraged by the decision and the decline in racial diversity that followed. Many of the big decisions we’ve seen from them, such as devaluing the SAT and moving to a holistic policy, have been done with the goal of increasing racial diversity. </p>
<p>All of the top 25 except Caltech hold racial diversity as firmly important. As a result, many many people who value racial diversity, including the top minority students, do not apply there. Caltech appears to be ok with that, and I’m ok with that as well. I simply would never attend Caltech.</p>
<p>Madville, for some education is not about creating wealth. In fact, if top students are disappointed in their college results, if you send them a message that they don’t belong in academia, some of them become practical and end up taking the lucrative jobs you value so highly instead of taking a relatively low paying job finding the cure for cancer or the next alternative energy source.</p>
<p>Not surprising. Also the Michigan higher ups supported diversity as well. Given that a great deal of schools are liberal in their policies, I would anticipate them supporting AA and diversity. However, put before the PEOPLE, not the state, it was shot down. Given that California is about 7% African American, and Michigan about 20%, don’t know Washington state off hand, (and I can assure you most blacks and latino support AA and diversity and vote accordingly) that “majority” of people you spoke of shot it down when given the chance. Just as Obama, they needed a whole lot of whites to look past the skin to pull it off. So far 0 for 3. Well not actually, kudos to the states that did not support the Ward Conelly sponsored initiatives for this upcoming election.</p>
<p>tyler: “All of the top 25 except Caltech hold racial diversity as firmly important. As a result, many many people who value racial diversity, including the top minority students, do not apply there. Caltech appears to be ok with that, and I’m ok with that as well. I simply would never attend Caltech.”</p>
<p>First of all, I don’t think it’s fair to say Caltech does not value diversity. I didn’t go to Caltech, but I think they have special scholarships for minorities. They make a special effort to recruit minorities. Second of all, there are many reasons not to choose Caltech. They only take 200 people a year, and if your SATI and SATII subscores aren’t ~750+, your chances go way down. The math SATII pretty much had better be 800. Also, if you’ve got a “B” in math or science, your chances of admission are extremely unlikely. If you look at the following graph, there aren’t many minorities in the 750-800 math SAT range. <a href=“Archive Goodbye - NCSES | NSF - National Science Foundation”>Archive Goodbye - NCSES | NSF - National Science Foundation; (The red curve is 1992 and so it is out-of-date, but I wasn’t able to find a more recent one.) There are many reasons why the few minorities that do score that highly would choose HYP or Stanford. Some may not want to be a scientist or engineer. Others may want to become a scientist but would prefer a liberal arts education. In terms of its value as a wealth-generating mechanism, Caltech is not as good as its peer schools. It takes more work for the same grades. And it’s not as known to the general public as HYP or even MIT. Some may not choose it because it doesn’t have many minorities, but this is only one of many reasons not to go.</p>
<p>Of course I wasn’t speaking in absolute terms, and there are many influential and wealthy people who haven’t a college degree. A point I was making is that formal education whether it be via college or OJT in a corporate/businessplace setting provide the tools to create wealth or significant income. It is just one vehicle for creating a form of capital. People covet these types of envoironments because of the various sources of capital they possess such as economic, political, social, or the superior ability to develop human capital. Given the negative mindset that race has factored into the psyche of Americans, it doesn’t suprise me that the special consideration provided for people of color would be so hotly challenged. </p>
<p>Civil rights legislation on a large scale wasn’t put up for a popular vote for the most part. It was legislation enacted by that minority of politicians empowered to do what they felt was politically expedient.</p>
<p>“People covet these types of envoironments because of the various sources of capital they possess such as economic, political, social, or the superior ability to develop human capital”</p>
<p>This is probably true of many people, but not scholars. Besides the education itself, one reason scholars might crave that sort of environment is that it symbolizes recognition for intellectual excellence. It’s sort of like making the olympics.</p>
<p>Good exchanges in the four posts 351-354. The clincher for me in the debate over AA are in madville’s last paragraph in post 354 and earlier, & in Tyler’s assertion in post 349 that many students who value racial diversity in a campus do not apply to campuses without it (or with less of it). These frame the 2 underlyling reasons for AA in the nation’s private elites: (1) It has been identified by those in education as a (not the only) social mission of such a college or U; (2) it is additionally a business decision for these private businesses. </p>
<p>In building the optimal freshman class, the committee wants all the available talent in the pool; many talented URM’s and ORM’s alike will not apply to a private (or public) Elite which appears to be overly dominated by any one segment or segments, regardless of the applicant’s own origin. It is a conscious decision on the part of these applicants, many of whom have weighed in on this over the past several years on CC. So whether it’s a rich, white preppy private college in VA, a historically black college, or a public U which has become de facto heavily ‘racially’ and economically narrow in its freshman class composition (due to the disappearance of AA), the applicant pool of URM’s and ORM’s changes as a result of that dominant student body. Consumers have spoken, and the private Elites want those consumers who align with their mission included in the talent pool.</p>
<p>As to losing other talented URM’s or ORM’s (i.e., students who disapprove of such policies), the Elites are not particularly bothered by that. (1) The existing applicant pool to Elites is already overflowing; (2) students sharing the U’s add’l social mission of racial inclusion will likely be happier there than students who do not share that vision; (3) success in college is partly linked to social comfort there. </p>
<p>This is a big country & a free country. Included in that freedom are its vast educational opportunities in higher education, enormously outpacing what is available equivalently overseas. Students are free to choose a de-facto segregated college or an institution overtly welcoming to & oriented to a particular population (such as Spelman). Included in that freedom is the economic freedom which attracts immigrants from Mexico, Asia, the Middle East – any of whom can choose to open a college with a particular mission oriented to a particular mindset and admissions policy. The argument that only a handful of colleges in the country make it possible to become successful or very successful, is not supported by evidence. The US Supreme Court has not ruled that HYPSMC, etc. provide a markedly different educational product than all the other privates & publics in the country; thus there is no denial of equal opportunity to an ORM by the acceptance of a few URM’s with slightly lower or with much lower (a la Bowen & Bok) scores. A possible perception by employers that HYPSMC provide a ‘better education’ & thus tend to employ such graduates at higher rates in certain occupations will not fly as a legal argument. </p>
<p>A footnote regarding minority-only scholarships (because of collegealum’s post): I am not at all for them. I support scholarships for students who have demonstrated significant <em>leadership</em> in their minority community (because that advances the educational & economic progress of that entire segment), but not scholarships awarded by a 4-yr college for being a member of a minority community. I don’t approve of it either on the college or on the k-12 level, & have criticized those privates & publics which continue to do that. That excludes a huge number of equally poor (& often more poor) Asian and white students. OTOH, private <em>agencies</em> can (and do) award small scholarships to various cultural segments, which is entirely in keeping with a culturally & economically free society. (Scholarships for Hungarians, Poles, Koreans, etc.)</p>
<p>I dont see how they determine your race.
On the application the choices are very vague.
Caucasian, hispanic/latino, african/african-american, asian</p>
<p>bla bla</p>
<p>For example how are they supposed to know I am a 1st generation African American? that might be the baisis of my Essay, but what about those who don include it in their essays?</p>
<p>epiphany: “A footnote regarding minority-only scholarships (because of collegealum’s post): I am not at all for them. I support scholarships for students who have demonstrated significant <em>leadership</em> in their minority community (because that advances the educational & economic progress of that entire segment), but not scholarships awarded by a 4-yr college for being a member of a minority community. I don’t approve of it either on the college or on the k-12 level, & have criticized those privates & publics which continue to do that. That excludes a huge number of equally poor (& often more poor) Asian and white students. OTOH, private <em>agencies</em> can (and do) award small scholarships to various cultural segments, which is entirely in keeping with a culturally & economically free society. (Scholarships for Hungarians, Poles, Koreans, etc.)”</p>
<p>Hm… I have always been more in favor of scholarships for minorities with excellent records than preference in admissions. As an aside, I think admissions sends the wrong message by selecting minorities who are active in the community instead of those who are academic stars. Something that comes to mind is a case where one minority on CC had a 500 math score but spent significant time going to schools and giving talks in order to be a positive role model. This person got into Stanford, probably because of his work in the community as well as URM status. I’ve seen other URM’s with stellar stats who don’t get in because they are trying to improve their mind rather than become significantly engaged in the community. My feeling is that if you have deficiencies that large you should spend your time trying to correct them (at least during the school year.) Also, I think a lot of people who overcome financial hardship and/or racial discrimination will become active in the community later. It doesn’t have to happen while they are high school students. And I think if they really become engaged to get the most out of high school, they will be more equipped to help their community.</p>
<p>“For example how are they supposed to know I am a 1st generation African American? that might be the baisis of my Essay, but what about those who don include it in their essays?”</p>
<p>They wouldn’t know unless you check the African American box or write an essay about it. They know about your 1st generation status because they ask for your parents’ college degrees.</p>
<p>It’s not an either/or, collegealum – at least those scholarships with which I’m acquainted. They’re limited to high-academic achievers who have also been role models in those communities. </p>
<p>What I was talking about are the scholarship awards given to barely performing, low-income URM’s vs. highly performing equally low-income (or <em>lower</em> income) East Asians, southeast Asians, and whites. (Having nothing to do with leadership in any of those awards.) So rather than merit + need as a standard, they become need + race as a standard.</p>
