<p>Why do you say that it's not true? Myopia has been shown to have a positive correlation with intelligence.</p>
<p>And yes, you are correct in saying that the average scores for African-Americans are lower than the average scores for Asian-Americans.</p>
<p>Ok, cool, so then there is no need to offer affirmative action to myopic people if they are already doing ok in the college admissions process.</p>
<p>So how absurd would it be to offer AA to non-myopic people?</p>
<p>And we got sidetracked from your initial argument that people of a certain race all face prejudices (I quote: "That is very different. There are few "short people" stereotypes and prejudices.").</p>
<p>Wouldn't you say myopic and fat people face prejudices and stereotypes?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Wouldn't you say myopic and fat people face prejudices and stereotypes?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Sure, and that's why diversity of the "weight" of people is important too. But as I said, affirmative action isn't needed in that case because skinny people aren't getting in at vastly higher rates.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You're saying that blacks often start with less than zero in the USA (the lag). Well, what about Asian immigrants? They come here with less than zero as well, they have NO grasp of the language, and only the clothes on their back.
[/quote]
I really wish I could get this over to you in a way to make you feel it. You know, it is not about how much money you have in your pocket. I could give most immigrants, Asian, African, or anything else, ten thousand dollars, and they would use their sense of hope and courage and expectation to invest and leverage it into a better future. I could give the exact same thing to many blacks, and the lack of hope, the lack of courage, and the lack of expectation will cause them to blow it, probably in a day. This will sound harsh, but I think it is true, so I’ll just say it: these people were created by America to have this way of viewing life. It was all a slave needed. Thankfully, millions of blacks are out of this. Many others are moving out of it, and I think AA had a lot to do with this progress. But still, we have too many blacks who are still suffering many of the effects of the past. The very fact that immigrants show up here means they start out with a culture of progress that millions of blacks do not have and never have had.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And business? That's a pretty euphemistic way of saying escaping from genocide, wars, oppression, and starvation.
[/quote]
Please look at it in essential terms. You will see that it is nothing more than business. We start businesses to escape the same essential thing. Asians began their American enterprise to escape what all business people aim to escape – an early death.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Also, what about hispanics?
[/quote]
There are only two groups which by law this government destroyed, Native Americans, and blacks. But I am an American, and enjoy having many Americans who do not look like me in this country. I like seeing the differences, and seeing the similarities in the differences. I like experimenting with these differences, watching how they sometimes disappear with familiarity. Because of this, and more, I think diversity is a very worthy goal. I have learned a great amount from it. It is why I support policies that create diversity. Diversity is America. So, I wish America, all of it, to get a decent piece of our nation’s pie. I want no group left out due to some robotic Chinese policy. It didn’t help China, and it won’t help America.</p>
<p>
[quote]
First, I'd have to write my essays on that topic for schools to recognize that. URMs just check a box. How fair is that?
[/quote]
You can check the same box and identify yourself as an Asian. You have something to offer as an Asian. Obviously admission officers see this in many Asians. They can see it in you too as they view your entire application, hiding nothing significant (and race in America is highly significant).</p>
<p>
[quote]
The second problem is, I want to be judged by who I am! My accomplishments, my character, and my skills. I don't want to get in because my ancestors did something or that. I'd like to think that most people would want to be judged as individuals as well.
[/quote]
Son. Listen. This is MLK stuff. It is his dream, and I share it. It is NOT reality, and demanding that it become reality in one of the few areas that can elevate our countrymen is to put the great cost of change on the people who are hurting most. We should effect all of this wonderful race-blindness everywhere else but here, until mentioning race is as meaningless to us as mentioning hair and eye color.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Don't mix up my arguments. (S)he claims that your experiences are shaped by countless things and as such we should factor in race as well. Would you argue that a fat person's experiences are different from a fit person's?
[/quote]
Indeed they are, and you know what? If a fat person wants to deal with his fatness because of the influence, then by all means he should. It could be that this aspect of his person will influence the decision to accept him. But because there has been no historic, chronic and legal mistreatment of fat people as a group, the issue is nothing our government needs to deal with in an AA policy.</p>
<p>(must go. Its been a pleasure - Thanks so much)</p>
<p>You have something to offer as an Asian. Obviously admission officers see this in many Asians. They can see it in you too as they view your entire application, hiding nothing significant (and race in America is highly significant).</p>
<p>That is very true except that being Asian just offers a whole lot less than being any other race. It is just like the fact that being asian will not hurt your chances at entering a top university. It's just that not being asian will help.</p>
<p>Little word games of admission officers.</p>
<p>You know, I suddenly realized that when it comes to affirmative action on this forum, parents aren't any more mature than we are.</p>
<p>They are every bit as susceptible to fallacies, straw manning, definitional slights, and other "debate tactics" as we are.</p>
<p>Fallacies? Check out post 24. Wow, I didn't expect a modified form of reductio ad hitlerum that quickly. I mean, there are plenty of Americans who are neither KKK nor Aryan Nation who are against racial preferences. They choose to uphold our nation's egalitarian principles, not racist dogma.</p>
<p>Straw manning? I don't know how many times parents have accused me of having a sense of entitlement or of believing that "under-represented" minorities are inferior. I've stated neither.</p>
<p>Definitional slights? Whenever supporters of affirmative action start to get annoyed at the phrase "racial preferences," they boldly state that they don't exist. But! Diversity, balance, and inclusion still exist. Just not racial preferences. That's a taboo word that we made up. Uh huh. Cows fly.</p>
<p>I don't know hoe to quote things, but I'll give it a shot...
<quote>I agree about Martin Luther's dream not coming true, but I think this diversity thing will not last forever.</quote></p>
<p>Martin Luther's dream has not come true because we are not all Lutherans.</p>
<p>I keeping cracking up whenever I read post 23. It seems to say something to the effect of...China should give AA benefits to Chinese people?</p>
<p><em>warning: sarcasm begins HERE</em> Wow, Drosselmeier, I guess you're right. Maybe I should become a Neo-Nazi. After all, you'll be voting right along with Malcolm X and his violent ideas.</p>
<p>"I keeping cracking up whenever I read post 23. It seems to say something to the effect of...China should give AA benefits to Chinese people?"</p>
<p>Actually, China gives quite a lot of AA benefits to it's minorities - Hui's, Uigyurs, Tibetans, Manchurians... and in China, those benefits for them are MUCH more unfair to the majority ethnicity than AA benefits for URM in America.</p>
<p>Anyway, to me - diversity shopping becomes racism WHEN one person gets chosen over another for no other reason than simply the color of his/her skin. Again, didn't MLK himself state that one should not be judged by the color his skin but rather the content of their character? Shouldn't this apply to something as huge as college admissions?</p>
<p>Hui, Uyghur, Tibetan, and Manchurian people are not ethnically Han Chinese (the group I meant to refer to). I think you misinterpreted that statement. Sorry if it wasn't clear.</p>
<p>I didn't misinterpret that statement.</p>
<p>Hui, Uyghur, Tibetan, Manchurian are ETHNIC Chinese, not ethnic HAN Chinese... I never said they were ethnic Han Chinese.</p>
<p>Fabrizio:</p>
<p>I don't think you want to start the 'debate tactics' again....looks like I'll have to get back into it.</p>
<p>Some kids--and some parents--argue the the normative (using their own religious, political, social stance to define it), and ignore the positive (what is happining today).</p>
<p>It is easy for some to hold to an ideal (defined by their own wants and needs) without consideration of what is. Most like to argue theory, especially when it benefits themselves or their group affiliations and mask it by using a normative....</p>
<p>Anti-AA and Pro-AA supporters both do this, but some vocal anti-AA individuals also use the normative to hide from the reality of what their position does directly (to those that are not in the majority) by ignoring the positive (i.e. what the situation is now, or in the near future).</p>
<p>Thus, many use debate tactics to try and impose their ideas (normative and otherwise) on the country as a whole when it comes to selective college admissions because of their normative stance or position.</p>
<p>Uyghurs are Turkic. Tibetans are, well, Tibetan. Ignoring the fact that Manchuria falls partially within Russia, Manchurians are Tungusic. I guess I can't really argue with the Hui, though. Only the Tibetans and Hui, out of those, I mean, share linguistic and ethnic backgrounds with Han Chinese (although that is half of those you gave). Regardless of whether or not they are one of the 56 recongnized ethnic groups or not, Uyghurs, Manchurians, and arguably Tibetans are not really "Chinese".</p>
<p>That's really a minor point of a statement that I didn't mean to be taken seriously anyway...</p>
<p>Those minorities aren't HAN Chinese, but they are Chinese. Their territories are within China are they not? Chinese is not an ethnic background, it is a national background. Han is an ethnic background... Tibetan is an ethnic background.</p>
<p>It's like saying Mexican-Americans aren't really "American" because of their ethnicity. If they were born in America, they are American. Same goes with China... regardless of your ethnicity, if you were born on Chinese land, YOU ARE Chinese.</p>
<p>I suspect that the basic problem here is one of what is and what isn't "fair" competition. One side seems to feel that one's "race" (and I think race is a false construct, but that's another thread) shouldn't count in making admissions decisions. Another side seems to feel that it should.</p>
<p>I don't believe that the side that says race shouldn't count has given an alternative for which factors should count. There has been some mention of irrelevant or nearly irrelevant factors, but that argument isn't very helpful. </p>
<p>The reality is that all sorts of factors beyond an individual's control can count in the admissions process. Geography, state residence, children of faculty, legacy status, Mom and Dad's ability to pay, Dad knows the president of the college, Mom bought the school a new wing for the hospital, URM status, etc. </p>
<p>Other factors CAN be controlled, somewhat, but are usually determined by parents in one way or another. For instance, some schools give preference to members of a particular religion. Some admissions departments have long-standing relationships with feeder schools and give preference to graduates from those high schools. </p>
<p>In addition, some factors are heavily influenced, or even completely controlled, by opportunity. For real examples, I have one child in LA who has appeared on ER, MTV, and in several films. I have another with a small part in a Broadway musical. Both attended an acting training program that has turned out one Tony Award winner and five nominees, and numerous people who have gone on to have leading roles on stage and screen. I doubt either child would have been accepted to elite training programs without this training, or would have the contacts they have or the agents they have without the help of other graduates. Other parents buy years of private harp or oboe lessons for their children, giving them strong tips and even the occasional hook in the admissions process.</p>
<p>So, it seems to me that there are three categories of factors. Those over which one has no control; those over which one has marginal control; and those which require hard work and accomplishment on the part of the child in question, but which would not be available to everyone.</p>
<p>So far, when advocating meritocracy (whatever that is) in admissions, I do not recall the side in favor of it expressing any problem with preferences for legacies, those who can pay, those whose parents give a great deal of money to a school, children of faculty, or parents who have friendships with decision-makers at those schools. I have also not noticed an outcry against preferences for religion or graduates of feeder high schools. </p>
<p>So, a first question I must ask is, “If fairness in competition is so important, why don’t those who are against affirmative action also express opposition to considering other factors beyond an applicant’s control? Why only affirmative action?”</p>
<p>"diversity shopping becomes racism WHEN one person gets chosen over another for no other reason than simply the color of his/her skin. Again, didn't MLK himself state that one should not be judged by the color his skin but rather the content of their character? Shouldn't this apply to something as huge as college admissions?"</p>
<p>Yes.<br>
And there are other essential differences between the MLK speech & setting, vs. private college admissions. He was speaking about deliberate, systematic & wholesale exclusion from entirely a racial viewpoint, without regard to the content of character, the qualifications of the individual, legal equality, etc. His mention of "little black boys and little black girls" was a direct reference to the local government's refusal to allow universal access to integrated public education. His appeal to going beyond race, and dropping race, was based on the fact that minority race was regarded as a negative by the majority, not as an affirming quality (ie., college admissions) or even a neutral feature of personhood. Unquestionably, the speech implies a LOOKING FORWARD (over & over he says it) TO THE DAY WHEN race wil be a neutral feature of personhood. But he was realistic enough to know that that day was not just around the corner. That's why there are constant references to the future in the speech, and "looking from the mountaintop" -- a phrase both biblical and futuristic.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Definitional slights? Whenever supporters of affirmative action start to get annoyed at the phrase "racial preferences," they boldly state that they don't exist.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What people object to is that you assert that racial preferences are the primary reason for minorities getting into a selective college. Some AA supporters do not advocate for gender or ethnicity or race to be the only or the most heavily considered of all the parts that make up an admissions application.</p>
<p>It is only when individuals assert that ethnicity considerations (and their attendent issues) should not be considered, and other 'preferences' like good ECs, geographical residence, essays, test scores, developmental status, home state, high school attended, legacy standing, etc...should be. </p>
<p>If racial preferences do exisit, they exist at the UC's (I doubt it). The UC system has a racial preference for Asians (East Asians, more so than Southeast Asians), if you consider how some of the incoming class is chosen. So if you are fine with the UCs using tools that result in racial preferences to benefit Asians, then so be it. I would argue, that since it does not consider all applicants holistically in admissions, that particular individuals are sometimes shut out because it does not consider other factor much. Luckily, there are other schools that use a more balanced, holistic approach to choose it's students.</p>
<p>Uyghurs are very common in Kazakhstan and other neighboring countries, and Manchurians live in Russia as well as China. Tibetans have also historically lived in Nepal and Bhutan. If Mexican-Americans lived in Canada, they wouldn't be Mexican-Americans anymore, eh?</p>
<p>In response to Tarhunt's question, we do. Or, at the very least, I do. For some reason, I think the latter statement is more accurate.</p>
<p>prol:</p>
<p>Perhaps you do, but I've never seen it explicitly stated in context of all factors that are beyond the applican'ts control? Have you?</p>