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Do these poverty-level whites and Asians have access to educational opportunities that the upper middle class blacks do not?
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I think they do, though I also think the issue is more complex than mere access to a school across town. Poor whites and poor Asians aren’t generally living in the same communities as blacks, and they aren’t subjected to the same pressures</a> and stigmas that affect blacks of all income levels. Surely Asians face some of these things, but not to the extent blacks face them. Moreover, there are issues with culture that give whites a boost and that are decidedly harmful to blacks of all income levels. Poor white kids get to see White Jesus each Sunday, and they enjoy White Santa each Christmas, in newspapers, magazines, and on television nationwide. They get to read “great” literature wherein mere handfuls of noble whites throttle tens of thousands of dark-skinned human corruptions. They even get to see black kids made to read this “great” literature. They are raised in a culture where film after film shows mere handfuls of whites throttling apparent millions of dark-skinned humans. These are mere examples of the cultural advantages poor whites have over even the wealthiest blacks – and they are very powerful. They are additionally so ubiquitous everyone takes them for granted. Indeed, they are such established features of our culture most of us would have a hard time accepting anything else. I think poor Asian-Americans, by and large, are somewhat insulated from the ill-affects of this advantage because they are able to derive quite a lot of meaning from their own cultural myths, beliefs, and observances, many of which come directly from their ancestral homelands. But due to history, blacks are left in the very unfortunate position of accepting an identity rooted in humiliation while developing</a> other paths to meaning out of thin air. We are just now beginning to structure healthy identity whereas other groups have had myths and heritages given them that are several thousands of years in the making. It puts blacks, even the wealthiest of us, at a remarkable disadvantage socially and academically. I have seen all of this first hand and experienced it, quite frequently, and directly. I suspect should we poll the blacks even on these forums, even the richest, most educated among them, ninety-nine percent of them would also report feeling the weight of these pressures. The other one percent would simply lie to “get along”. Lies and one of many coping mechanisms we blacks have developed to deal with this place. But despite our denials those pressures cause us to experience higher crime, greater mental anguish, higher blood pressure, and generally poorer health than most. And even these outcomes affect our families, trickling down to destroy academic performances of the smallest among us.</p>
<p>I certainly grant we also have problems in black culture that inhibit academic progress. My buddies argue vehemently against this, but I am convinced of it. I do not, however, wish to be understood as claiming that our cultural problems are separable from the problems mentioned above. Nor do I wish to be misconstrued as blaming our SAT disparities solely on these sorts of problems. Again, the overall problem is complex, consisting of many intricately woven pressures that tend to converge in the lives of blacks from the moment they are conceived. It affects our attitudes toward prenatal care, post-natal nutrition, language, structured thought, reading, science, and mathematics. The problems in the larger culture have always created or at least exacerbated problems extant in black communities, causing us to take damaging approaches to life, health, and child development. The problems so effectively hamper the stamina and focus of black children that a $60,000 income advantage for a black family over a white one means very little, especially since the buying power of a dollar continually plummets because of inflationary theft. Because of our history and the society that history continually gives us, an average poor white infant begins in America with a significant advantage even over an average middle-class black infant. While I think none of this gives us an excuse for failing to care for our families, I do understand that we are just people like everyone else. This means we are going to respond to problems essentially as everyone else would. Our biggest problem is not that we have problems. It is that, due to our historical experience here, we are unable to absorb problems as other groups do. Increased family dissolution, for example, has affected all groups, including blacks. But due to history, blacks as a group were least able to absorb so fundamental a change. While other groups have suffered, blacks were devastated. The pressures against us are immense, and they feed other pressures, creating stigmas and hampering academic determination. Poor whites certainly have problems. But I’d wager there are few poor whites in today’s America who would willingly give up their white skin if it meant becoming a middle class black.</p>
<p>We</a> blacks can overcome all of this, especially should we focus very early on nutrition and intense education for blacks. The kids can learn at surprisingly early ages and yet develop nicely. Unfortunately I think public schools, as they now operate, are unable to help us. I do not think America can help because help requires sheer honesty and close attention to history, two things America has never had. Instead, it will take much more time than necessary, much more debate, and a lot of sweat for us to generally come to understand how we might make the proper changes, both culturally and institutionally, to bring about healing in ourselves. In the meantime, there are black kids, rich and poor, who are overcoming the difficulties I have briefly mentioned here on their own. They are just a relative few kids each year—hardly anything to cause so many teeming masses of Asian and white students to pour on the sort of heartless arrogance I commonly see on these forums. I understand I am in the minority when it comes to my view of AA, and I respect those who disagree with me agreeably, both AA supporters and otherwise. But I still think AA should be used to train attention upon these black kids to minimize the likelihood of their getting overlooked. By doing this, we help force a healthy outcome to offset so many unhealthy outcomes that have been forced on blacks for almost the entire time we have been in this place.</p>
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I challenge a supporter of racial preferences to state that fewer "under-represented" minorities is an acceptable outcome of race-blind admissions.
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This is nothing more than a challenge for starving men to reject the food formerly stolen from them. Sure, we may boldly challenge them not to take back what was stolen, but the challenge is unimpressive. I see it like this: a man’s legacy, history, and home, were all taken away along with his chance to discover, through ancient culture, why he lives, why his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents before him lived. That is, to a great extent, what being human is all about, and yet it was all stolen from this guy. He was taken against his will to a new land. The outcome was that he was made destitute, and uneducated. This outcome was created by American law, which also made sure the outcome would persist through time, even against the man’s progeny. The outcome was a people without the freedom to adopt the rights and practices (not even the speech!) and education of their new place of residence. It was a deliberate outcome. Finally, the laws were changed to permit the man’s progeny freedom to acquire new culture, but hatred was so great against them that the laws were ineffectual. The people were left to do what no people has ever done—namely, quick build an effective culture from scratch, and since the task is very difficult, if not impossible, the eventual outcome was a people who lived in the country but who were not genuinely of the country. Indeed, they were not of any country, due to the earlier created outcomes. Recognizing that several negative outcomes had been forced upon this people, the government further altered its laws with the aim of forcing a new, positive outcome-- one where the people would gradually acquire the education and culture of their new home. In this way, they would over time regain what was taken away, thinking their new home truly their own. When you issue your little “challenge” here, you are demanding they reject what seems to be a chance to create this positive outcome. Your challenge is patently ridiculous, which is why few, if any, will take you up on it.</p>
<p>It is also such a heartless challenge because it demands, with shameful arrogance, that blacks accept the diabolical outcomes that were forced intentionally against them via their ancestors, while rejecting the one attempt to create a positive outcome for them. Asians here never went through the sort of wholesale theft of heritage and life that blacks have endured. Not even the Japanese of WWII went through anything like this. They have no cause above blacks to expect from our government the outcome of a place they can truly call their own. The only outcome they have cause to demand is the freedom to pursue such a place. Asians now enjoy the stability of histories that brought them here of their own will, and that despite suffering has left them a sense of history and culture. Some of them apparently now sit in the comfort of that stability and issue bold challenges against people who endure the instability created by our nation’s theft. I do not think any truly thinking person will be impressed with these challenges. Unlike Asians, blacks have had something taken away that is critical to the well-being of any member of our species. They must have it back. America owes them this – not just the freedom to pursue it, but the outcome itself. Our country can ill afford to rest until this outcome is achieved.</p>