<p>It doesn't take money to prepare for the SAT, it takes discipline. Read, do math problems, pick up a cheap vocabulary book and review it. More prep and less whinning would help a lot.</p>
<p>You have an amazing voice, Drosselmeier. Thank you for taking the time to post your reasoned thoughts on the aftermath of our history of slavery. It's an enormous and complicated issue. Most people shy away from contemplating even the foothills of that issue.</p>
<p>I enjoyed reading your posts.</p>
<p>Drosselmeier,</p>
<p>I would like to list some of your more questionable statements.</p>
<ol>
<li>Jesus undoubtedly did not look Nordic European. Almost nobody today argues for this position. Jesus was most likely a dark-skinned Semitic Jew. Though he was dark-skinned, he was not black. If you are even remotely suggesting that Semites have a right to label themselves as blacks, I support you. It will do wonders for diversity.</li>
<li>300 dehumanized Persians, who are whites, not blacks. A google search using keywords NAACP, 300, movie, and racist turns up largely negative. Replacing NAACP with Iran immediately yields results. If you’re insinuating that Persians, like Semites, have a right to be considered black, again, I support you. Diversity will be aided.</li>
<li>You said that you never suggested that “there is a dearth of black heroes in America.” A few paragraphs later, you lamented that “our heroes are too few.” These appear to be conflicting to me.</li>
<li>Dr. King was not perfect. He was human, and he had his flaws. But to label him as a supplicant is to ignore his years of hard work, dedication, and struggle that served as a catalyst for changing a reluctant nation. I believe you are dishonoring his legacy.</li>
</ol>
<p>You get away with a lot of "interesting" comments.</p>
<p>In any case, thanks for the response. I appreciate it.</p>
<p>If SATs were the only deciding factor in college admissions, boys would take up many more spots than girls.</p>
<h2>2. 300 dehumanized Persians, who are whites, not blacks. A google search using keywords NAACP, 300, movie, and racist turns up largely negative. Replacing NAACP with Iran immediately yields results. If youre insinuating that Persians, like Semites, have a right to be considered black, again, I support you. Diversity will be aided.</h2>
<p>I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know what the various actors looked like. However, in real life Greeks and Persians look very much alike.</p>
<p>collegealum314,</p>
<p>You're exactly right. Hence, Drosselmeier's paragraph, as follows:</p>
<p>
[quote]
There is almost always a great difference between showing blacks like Will Smith and Martin Lawrence doing the ridiculous and showing white guys doing it…In the second cases we are typically dealing with the same old bogus racial imagery that have been fortifying whites and condemning blacks since forever. “300” was no joke, like “Bad Boys” was.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>By using 300 as an example, Drosselmeier indicates his belief that the film was yet another example of our culture “fortifying whites” and “condemning blacks.” There’s just one thing – Persians aren’t black. They’re white.</p>
<p>I hope Drosselmeier was suggesting that Persians can call themselves black because it will help diversity.</p>
<p>Those of us who have studied mystical literature extensively (Christian mystical writings -- from ancient to medieval to modern), are aware that much of the visual representation of holy people/leaders in general -- including Jesus -- is based on visionary experiences: dreams, visions during prayer, 'visiitations', etc. Often the visual impression of the figure is not dissimilar to what the dreamer or visionary has experienced in real life. Thus, a European might have visualized Jesus as "white", an African as very dark-skinned, etc. From studying many scholars of myth and the unconscious (Jung, Freud, Campbell et al.), it would make sense that such symbolism would be drawn from the nearby culture of the subject who has the vision. However, this is not always true. Often a lot of cross-cultural stuff happens. There have been nordic Europeans who have 'seen' a swarthy or dark-skinned Christ figure, and dark-skinned visionaries who have 'seen' a figure with much lighter skin than themselves. One aspect affecting many such visions is the frequency of reports of the figure being bathed in light, surrounding the figure with a white glow, and giving the appearance that the whole figure is sort of 'white' (or illuminated).</p>
<p>In addition, (as a side Infrequently Asked Question), the notion of God as an elderly man with white hair and a long white beard is directly taken from visionary literature. (Again, it's unknown whether the "whiteness" thus described is a result of reflected light.) That is to dispel the myth that the institutional Catholic Church somehow made up that figure, put it in the catechism books to demonstrate how "fatherly" God is. </p>
<p>(Y'all should visit our long 'religious' thread in the Cafe; way more 'happening' than this thread, which is tame by comparison. ;))</p>
<p>Seriously, one should be careful of trying to determine what Jesus' actual skin tone was. (I agree with fab. on this that this is sort of a non-issue in modern times, anyway.) I have lots of Persian friends, and have had for several decades now. Their skin tones -- like Afircan-Americans and nordic Europeans -- vary. I have known some whose skin tone looked like more the mid-range skin tone of a Mexican-American from an intermarried family (which can be pretty light and even have a blue undertone); I've known other Persians with decidedly golden skin, an overt yellow tone that cannot be called 'brown' or 'black'. There is a spectrum, even among those who are not products of any recent intermarriage. Some of that is on the warm side of the color wheel (yellows, browns); other of it is on the cool side (blue, black undertones).</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think to myself: If only an admissions person from X College walked through this lounge at 8:30am and saw these kids studying and focused, they'd know they've missed a lot of opportunities.
[/quote]
Weenie, would those hard-working kids be able to keep up at an elite university? Since I did not attend one, perhaps I have an inflated view of the difficulty level. When I read about the stats of kids accepted to these universities, I imagine that the course work must be on the near-genius level. I wonder if a hard-working student (of any race) at a lower-tiered college could reasonably expect to keep his head above water at an ivy.</p>
<p>If that sort of student could do well at ivy-type schools, those schools have no business being so elitist in the first place!</p>
<p>Just curious...what are the percentages of blacks and other racial groups in the American population and how do those percentages compare to percentages in elite colleges? Wouldn't a match indicate that a racial balance had been struck? I believe for blacks it's around 12% of the population, but for the Ivies the black percentages are much higher.</p>
<p>Same for elite prep schools. 35 to 38% students of color for several of them.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Well, clearly if being black gives you the advantage equivalent to 220 extra SAT points, college admissions is one very valuable area where it pays to be black.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You need to do the math correctly. </p>
<p>For an individual, the advantage of being black in college admissions is (on average) outweighed, even just in economic value, by the cumulative disadvantages in the job market, housing market, social market, marriage market, etc.</p>
<p>For population groups, blacks and other minorities lose more admissions places than they gain (or to put it differently, whites gain a net admissions advantage that exceeds the number of slots lost to AA) because the natural number of equally-qualified URM applicants is reduced by societal disadvantages of the minorities. Those potential applicants that would exist in a hypothetical racially equalized United States are incarcerated, or in terrible schools, etc.</p>
<p>If one were to equalize not races but the educational opportunities for individuals --- if most of US population would have access to comparable quality of schooling, libraries, books, tutors, summer school, and so on --- the current college matriculant demographic would be the losers, in that their rate of admission would drop greatly as more competitors were added to the pool. The beneficiaries of the current educational (not necessarily racial) inequalities are mostly the wealthy, which are the population who disproportionately go to college. Suddenly placing more people who score at any given SAT range on the market would drop the admissions chances for anyone who could get in now, including both minorities and whites. </p>
<p>The only population that might increase its admissions chances (slightly, if at all) in a race-equalized America, i.e. one where the proportion of population with any given level of opportunity is the same by race, is Asian males.<br>
According to the numbers in the Espenshade and Chung study, this effect would be small.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Just curious...what are the percentages of blacks and other racial groups in the American population and how do those percentages compare to percentages in elite colleges? Wouldn't a match indicate that a racial balance had been struck? I believe for blacks it's around 12% of the population, but for the Ivies the black percentages are much higher.</p>
<p>Same for elite prep schools. 35 to 38% students of color for several of them.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>1.Often when a school cites that they have 35 to 38% students of color, they are including all minorities (even Asians although some believe they are over represented considering they comprise 4% of the population and way more than 4% of the population (2nd largest group after caucasians) at the Ivies).</p>
<p>2.Regarding the * I believe for blacks it's around 12% of the population, but for the Ivies the black percentages are much higher.*</p>
<p>The Journal on Blacks in Higher Education compiled these numbers and you will see that black apply to elite schools at considerably lower rates than non-blacks.</p>
<p>(21,101 students applied to Yale. 1386 6% of the applicant pool were African American. 112 African American students enrolled. However, no one is remotely talking about the other lions share of the 1878 admitted student who are not black but knocked “the more deserving student out of the box)</p>
<p>Princeton (1226 Freshmen, 4761 total) from their common data set on their site</p>
<p>African-American 9% (in real #s 104 freshman, 403 in total)
Asian-American 13%
Hispanic 7%
Native American 1%
White 62%
International 9%</p>
<p>Harvard</p>
<p>African-American 8%
Asian-American 18%
Hispanic 8%
Native American 1%
White 56%
International 9%</p>
<p>Yale (1315 freshmen, 5333 total) From their common data set</p>
<p>African-American 8% (117 freshmen, 441 total)
Asian-American 14%
Hispanic 7%
Native American 1%
White 62%
International 8%</p>
<p>Stanford (1646 freshmen, 6391 total) from their common data set</p>
<p>African-American 10% (166 freshmen, 660 total)
Asian-American 24%
Hispanic 11%
Native American 2%
White 46%</p>
<p>International 6%
<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/home/statistics/#admission%5B/url%5D">http://www.stanford.edu/home/statistics/#admission</a></p>
<p>U Penn</p>
<p>African-American 7%
Asian-American 18%
Hispanic 6%
Native American 0%
White 60%
International 9%</p>
<p>Duke</p>
<p>African-American 11%
Asian-American 14%
Hispanic 7%
Native American 0%
White 63%
International 5%</p>
<p>Dartmouth (1086 Freshmen, 4085 total) from their common data set</p>
<p>African-American 7% (80 freshman, 292 overall)
Asian-American 14%
Hispanic 6%
Native American 3%
White 65%
International 5%</p>
<p>Thanks for the numbers, sybbie. As you stated, and comparing those numbers to the census, one can see how African-Americans, Hispanics (and even Whites!) are under-represented in the Ivy League, while Asian-Americans are over-represented.</p>
<p>2000 Census:</p>
<p>African-American 12%
Asian-American 4%
Hispanic 14%
Native American 1%
White 74%</p>
<p>Siserune,
You state:</p>
<p>"For an individual, the advantage of being black in college admissions is (on average) outweighed, even just in economic value, by the cumulative disadvantages in the job market, housing market, social market, marriage market, etc.</p>
<p>For population groups, blacks and other minorities lose more admissions places than they gain (or to put it differently, whites gain a net admissions advantage that exceeds the number of slots lost to AA) because the natural number of equally-qualified URM applicants is reduced by societal disadvantages of the minorities. Those potential applicants that would exist in a hypothetical racially equalized United States are incarcerated, or in terrible schools, etc.</p>
<p>If one were to equalize not races but the educational opportunities for individuals --- if most of US population would have access to comparable quality of schooling, libraries, books, tutors, summer school, and so on --- the current college matriculant demographic would be the losers, in that their rate of admission would drop greatly as more competitors were added to the pool. The beneficiaries of the current educational (not necessarily racial) inequalities are mostly the wealthy, which are the population who disproportionately go to college. Suddenly placing more people who score at any given SAT range on the market would drop the admissions chances for anyone who could get in now, including both minorities and whites. "</p>
<p>Do you have any evidence for these assertions?</p>
<p>Going back to the original post, Now long forgotten. I think that one assumption that the authors make that would not actually occur is that if schools abandoned or deemphsized SAT's they would go to something like the 10% plans. These plans assume that all GPA's or rather class ranks are of equal value as a measure of ability. It's hard to imagine a more obviously false assumption. My guess is that if schools moved away from standardized tests they would attempt to weight GPA's and class ranks by the difficulty of the HS and the curriculum within the HS. This would be very hard to do and as a result I don't think we will see a mass abandonment of standardized testing (which, in part, serves this purpose now). But in such a world, it is not clear that minority acceptances, absent preferences, would be any better. Is anyone aware of any studies that have attempted to compare class ranks, race and SAT scores within a single HS with a common curriculum for all students? It would take such a study to answer this question.</p>
<p>Not exactly on point but relevant to this issue is the Bowen and Bok study, College Board, 1998, which pointed out that the SAT I actually overpredicts college academic performance for minority students.</p>
<p>
[quote]
1. Jesus undoubtedly did not look Nordic European. Almost nobody today argues for this position. Jesus was most likely a dark-skinned Semitic Jew. Though he was dark-skinned, he was not black. If you are even remotely suggesting that Semites have a right to label themselves as blacks, I support you. It will do wonders for diversity.
[/quote]
The point I am making is that the feature groupings that are almost always associated with Jesus, deliberately "just happen" to be the feature groupings that are almost always associated with "whites", which association is very likely false, and which “just happens” to encourage whites while applying downward pressure to blacks.</p>
<p>
[quote]
2. 300 dehumanized Persians, who are whites, not blacks. A google search using keywords NAACP, 300, movie, and racist turns up largely negative.
[/quote]
The NAACP is just one group. It very likely would comment on this issue once and be done with it. Large numbers of Google instances are therefore unlikely to show up on something that when compared with blacks dying because of deficient treatment in healthcare is apparently trivial. Additionally, your little search "NAACP, 300" is not necessarily the authoritative search that tells us about racism and the movie 300. It is no more authoritative than the search “300 persians blacks”, which turns up quite a bit of angry discussion on the issue. Lastly, Google itself is not even authoritative. It is a search engine that still has a lot of problems when it comes to finding things. This is all common sense, son. I ought not have to spell this out.</p>
<p>My point concerned how, though Persians look the same as the Greeks in truth, the film "just happened" to dehumanize them by making them dark, even strongly associating them with Africans in several places. I viewed the film in context of our history and society, and saw how it could affect young black minds who see it. It is one of thousands of obvious falsehoods that this society promulgates in the name of "entertainment", and that harm us. It is as if the director of 300 knew that should he have decided to tell the truth, his job would have been more difficult because he would have had to show why two people so similar in appearance hated each other. He would have had to show the disagreements between the peoples, the actual historical branching of thought that gave rise to the disagreements, the politics involved between the two. It is easier to avoid the truth, and make one side noble and white, while making the other sexually perverse, wicked, and dark. Just gotta make 'em dark because we can all instantly understand and be manipulated by this.</p>
<p>
[quote]
3. You said that you never suggested that “there is a dearth of black heroes in America.” A few paragraphs later, you lamented that “our heroes are too few.” These appear to be conflicting to me.
[/quote]
I simply interpreted the word "dearth" to mean "lack". We do not lack heroes. Our heroes are just too few and limited in intellectual scope. And history has made this so. We've been bamboozled.</p>
<p>
[quote]
4. Dr. King was not perfect. He was human, and he had his flaws. But to label him as a supplicant is to ignore his years of hard work, dedication, and struggle that served as a catalyst for changing a reluctant nation. I believe you are dishonoring his legacy.
[/quote]
Cheap sanctimony. Since you seem to think the readers here are prone to say to themselves "Yah! Drosselmeier really IS dishonoring King, and so we have little choice but to abandon everything and accept Fabrizio's beliefs", I'll just say I never said King was only a supplicant. The truth is, he was certainly a supplicant among other things, and it was his role as a supplicant that moved this nation. Had there been no white establishment holding all the cards in King's day, his great speeches would have been entirely irrelevant. Still, it is not as if his dream is now realized, and we ought not let the man's greatness ever distract us from this truth as you've tried to distract us here.</p>
<p>Fab,
I don't like to "speak for others," but I do want to give my perspective. If I were D, I'd be a little insulted. It's very tiresome the way you keep bringing up selective quotes from MLK to support your own viewpoint. It's actually kind of non-contextual. You'll be taking college-level history courses any moment now, so it's really important to understand this. It's something which afflicts many people, including some adults way beyond grad school, but esp. often students between ages say 16 and 22. It is the matter of historical perspective. </p>
<p>MLK was dealing with specific issues pertinent to his lifetime, his circle of colleagues. We actually don't know how he would feel if he had been born, say in 1980, were 27 years old today, and were forming an opinion about admissions policies at Elite U.S. colleges. Politically and socially he was from a different generation than you. You cannot apply the historical framework of one generation retroactively to the historical framework of another generation, in coming to conclusions about what past leaders should have done (with <em>today's</em> expectations or standards or acquired knowledge or different social & economic realities) or would have said or believed. That is a very anti-academic thing to do. </p>
<p>I think D knows what MLK stood for. My guess is that he's done a fair amount of reading of his less-quoted work. (Another thing that's really important for a true student of history: to read the more obscure writings, the 'private papers' if they're on record, etc.) Reading biographical information from any historical figure's contemporaries is also helpful: one gets insight into motivations, into that peson's anguish, sense of triumph, and the private persona. This puts the public speeches into perspective: it illustrates how those speeches may be just one portion of that figure's entire direction, hope, mind-set, etc. I am not meaning to talk-down to you in any way. I bring it up because it's your pattern to throw out quotes in what can be a historically irrelevant way, and because this is a common problem for students your age. I have to remind my own h.s. students taking advanced courses, not to do this.</p>
<p>I don't think any of us "knows" what Jesus appearance was- but I have also read that that his appearance was unusual for the region- which you may buy into more if you believe the son of God "thing", in order to be differentiated.</p>
<p>Not that lighter hair gives you any super human powers ;)</p>
<p>epiphany,</p>
<p>I went back over the thread looking for historically "out of context" quotes from Fabrizio and I find nothing that could be even remotely considered in this catagory. Could you be specific?</p>