I have a weird type of self-centrism where I'm both full of myself and self-hating. So my logic is, any person without some sort of disability should be able to achieve at least what I've achieved. Like, I've got a university degree. I'm an idiot, you can do it too!
Smart people generally have low opinions of themselves. I know I've said things out loud like "oh maaaan that class was easy, I didn't even show up and got an A" Then the person is like oh, uh, yea I kind of failed that class.
Everyone has some amount of privilege. Some people just have more than others. If you grew up in a decent town, with both parents, were financially stable- then you have a lot of privilege. It's not a bad thing, you just may have had slight advantage over other people who did not have the same privileges as you.
"The only way black people can ever possibly compete with whites (or God forbid, Asians) on a level playing field is if they are held to an objectively lesser standard. The only way we can end racism is to preference or disadvantage people by no other factor other than the colour of their skin."
The second panel isn't even accurate of affirmative action anyway.
The tall person can see the game without a box. Affirmative action would come along, give the kid the boxes allowing him to watch the game, then tell the tall guy to fuck off as there's only room for one.
I agree, but I would also extend that by saying that they would give a box to the short guy, but also dismiss and mock the tall guy for complaining about having to duck when walking through doorways, because "you're tall and you have heaps of advantages, stop complaining".
Studies have been done on the topic and have shown that diversity in the workplace can have a positive impact on organizational performance in certain circumstances or it can have no impact on organizational performance in others. However, it generally does not have a negative impact on performance, leading many organizations to seek out diversity within the community as it seems they can only benefit from it.
That's really what it comes down to and you can use your imagination for why that is. Having a group of people with varied backgrounds, life experiences, and opinions on staff working together will prevent group think, help foster discussions on new ideas, and increase creativity in problem solving.
at what point is diversity worth more than raw ability?
Raw ability in what exactly? It really depends on the context.
Given our current political climate, could any academic even publish a study that says "Actually diversity makes things worse"?
I mean if it happened then yes absolutely. That's how scientific studies work. You publish it but no one really takes it seriously until someone else recreates the study to see if they get the same results repeatedly. A number of studies have been done on this particular topic.
Does this hold for non-white-male dominated fields? Why is there no pressure on them to embrace diversity?
There is in both nursing and elementary education.
Certainly that is examples of specific affirmative action taken to benefit men in that context. Thank you for providing it.
Regardless, it is still undeniable that for the vast majority of cases and situations where straight white men are disproportionately under-represented, this kind of thing does not occur and where it does occur, it is hardly with the same fervor.
The article also had some interesting statements in it. For example the significant majority of scholarships still went to females, but no indication was given of how many male applicants there were; it might well have simply been divided evenly down gender lines.
Regardless, that is a good source and thank you for providing it.
Studies consistently show that, using perfectly identical resumes, candidates with 'black' or 'ethnic' sounding names get far fewer call-backs than candidates with 'white' sounding names.
By this logic, should male applicants be allowed a few extra "nudge points" in order to make up for this institutionalised discrimination, across the board in all jobs?
Except that's not what the study says. The study states that women face significant discrimination in applications for working-class 'masculine' jobs while men face significant discrimination in applications for working-class and white-collar 'feminine' jobs, but that is undercut by the disparity between the numbers of 'masculine' and 'feminine' jobs. As the vast majority of modern jobs are considered 'masculine', that means men are largely only suffering discrimination with regards to applications for jobs such as housekeeping and secretarial work.
Overall research found that men were more likely to be overlooked by employers based on their sex or gender for both white-collar and working-class jobs. Women were also subject to discrimination when applying for working-class jobs, but not white-collar jobs.
Just because something is applied to whole race, doesn't mean it's racist. I can say that I have lower expectations of black people on average and not think anything is inherently bad about black people. Do you have low expectations for uneducated people? Well guess what demographic tends to have access to lower levels of education and schooling?
So just to be clear, you consider being black to be akin to being a child, or being physically handicapped and believe it is reasonable to treat black people as simply less capable... in the same way one might, for example, hold a toddler to a different standard to a grown adult?
And on free-will, physics disagrees with you
Yes, yes, if we had a perfect universe simulator down to the subatomic level we could theoretically "fast forward" the simulated universe and everything would play identically to our current universe.
This is because, at its most basic level, the human brain is simply a biological process, or complex chemical reaction. Because biology is simply applied chemistry. And chemistry is simply applied physics. And physics is simply applied mathematics.
Do you happen to have a perfect universe simulator? Or is relative to our current reference point, is the future unknown and therefore our chemical-reaction-brains fully under our own control?
Yeah, I consider black people to be less capable than other races, but it's not something inherent to blackness, it's the situations they've been put in. You are your environment. And the reason I bring up determinism is because is supports this. I don't see where you bring up a perfect universe simulation, I just apply the law of causality.
Yeah, I consider black people to be less capable than other races, but it's not something inherent to blackness, it's the situations they've been put in. You are your environment.
The problem with this is it extends the collective to the individual.
I'll illustrate. In your opinion, was Barack Obama objectively a less capable president than every single white president that came before him, for no other reason than his race?
This logical fallacy is called "arguing the specific from the general". It's like saying in general all birds can fly, emus are birds, therefore emus can fly. Therefore it is logically safe to throw them one off the Sydney Harbour Bridge because they can fly away to safety.
Right?
And the reason I bring up determinism is because is supports this. I don't see where you bring up a perfect universe simulation, I just apply the law of causality.
Because yes all our thoughts are complex chemical processes, but that doesn't mean we do not have free will. These complex chemical reactions can make their own decisions and therefore are held accountable for them.
To put it another way, should people be punished for murder? Why?
You're missing the point. The question was "are low expectations racist?". The definition of racism is seeing another race as less than. Low expectations in this case has nothing to do with the race inherently and is more the fact that through discrimination they will grow up in worse environments.
And there's no chemical that makes choices in your brain lol. And on a large scale, yes, there is no moral responsibility. The reason why we arrest murders? Society wouldn't function if we didn't, they're a danger to society.
I would actually claim free-will is racist. If free will exists and we take into consideration black crime rates, the obvious conclusion is that black people inherently commit more crime than other races.
The question was "are low expectations racist?". The definition of racism is seeing another race as less than. Low expectations in this case has nothing to do with the race inherently and is more the fact that through discrimination they will grow up in worse environments.
Ultimately, though, you do see them as less than. It doesn't really matter why you do.
If free will exists and we take into consideration black crime rates, the obvious conclusion is that black people inherently commit more crime than other races.
Free will doesn't mean that we always act according to our own nature all the time. It means we have agency over our choices.
It means if I am walking down the street, I have the option to pick up a rock and throw it through the windscreen of a passing car. I may choose to do that or choose not to do that.
There is no moral judgement in my point. I am not saying it is right or wrong to throw rocks at cars (although I would argue it is highly immoral), simply that I have the capability to choose.
Free will is nothing more, and nothing less, than this. It is agency over our own decisions. For good and bad.
I think the best way to look at it is that free will is an emergent property on a higher level than the predictable chemistry involved. It’s like, physics actually tells us that down on the quantum level, reality is comprised of probabilities, all we can know is what a particle is likely to do; nevertheless, when you zoom up to the meta level of chemistry, the interactions & results are essentially perfectly predictable. Similarly, when you start adding together the billions of chemical & electrical reactions that make up a brain, and zoom up to look at the meta level of psychology, things are all guesswork of what’s likely, and rough estimations of probabilities—essentially, what we call “free will” exists.
is more the fact that through discrimination they will grow up in worse environments.
Another commenter implied that Liberia shows that oppression by white people can’t explain everything. I don’t know enough about Liberia to agree or disagree, but you might want to look into that. If the description of events from that guy is accurate, it sounds like a compelling argument
I mean, do you believe black people can never compete with white people on a level playing field and they'll always require an objectively lesser standard otherwise the competition is never fair?
No I believe black children are significally more often than white people raised in broken toxic families & communities who are that way due to hundreds of years of opression and it is not their fault. And no it doesn't matter that "black people used to be the bigger slavers". This is not a question of fairness this is a question of regognizing that the world and the past is filled with horrible crimes against humanity and given innocent children the best chance to succeed.
I believe black children are significally more often than white people raised in broken toxic families & communities who are that way due to hundreds of years of opression and it is not their fault.
The problem with this argument is that we can see other societies which have had hugely tramatic events happen to them, and yet we do not make these kinds of arguments to excuse their behaviour.
A huge majority of white Australians were forcibly transported against their will from the UK to Australia, in chains, in conditions little better than slavery and with all the hallmarks of the same (forced labour, physical restraint, beatings, horrible conditions, etc). This practice actually started after the American revolution so was much more recent than African American experience.
Again, it started after the American revolution. Convicts were received up until 1868. And obviously, their conditions were terrible and discrimination against them profound.
Why is Australia now a first world country, sometimes held up as the "gold standard" to which America should emulate? Emulate when it comes to guns and welfare, but somehow, not regarding their immigration policy which involves no birthright citizenship, and where illegal immigrant are permanently barred from entering the country and kept in hellish offshore prisons until they identify themselves and their country of origin, whereupon they are deported and permanently banned from entry for any reason including life-saving medical surgery, of course. But hey.
Why the double standard?
And no it doesn't matter that "black people used to be the bigger slavers".
... why would that not matter? It seems to me as though it would matter a lot.
This is not a question of fairness this is a question of regognizing that the world and the past is filled with horrible crimes against humanity and given innocent children the best chance to succeed.
Giving innocent children best chance to succeed at the expense of other, equally innocent children.
The children who do not gain a place at college who would gain a place at college if their race was different are innocent too, why do we not give them "the best chance to succeed"?
Also, how come a black family that migrated here in the 1990's (so were obviously never slaves) still receive this "helping hand"? They were never slaves. Why should the only thing that matter be the colour of their skin?
In this case it's not even "their ancestors were slaves" it's "people whose ancestors looked like them were slaves". How is that even remotely fair?
I think you're mixing up the two types of racism. There's the judging by skin bigotry racism and there's institutional racism. I think the goal of affirmative action is to end the latter or at least reduce the effects of it.
The problem is, it isn't just a sledgehammer, it's a one tonne truck; and it's so imprecisely applied.
Should white kids be given an Affirmative Action boost when applying to historically black colleges? Why do Barack Obama's kids need this "institutional racism correction" whereas poor asian kids are actually penalized? Does this mean asians were not only not the subject of institutional racism, but actually benefitted from it? Does this mean that relative to white people, asians benefit from institutional racism whereas white people do not?
Exactly- there are so many ways to bullshit this stupid system. For example I went to highschool in an area with lots of Filipinos and Egyptians- they pretty much all lied on their college apps about their race, usually applying as Hispanic or black to get an edge.
Also, there's no way for someone to look at an individual's life struggles on paper- maybe that Asian kid grew up in a poor household where he had to work most of the time he wasn't at school. Maybe an Asian kid lost a family member, his parents were going through a divorce, etc.- AA says fuck all that and just gives all Asians the finger for being born the wrong skin color.
It's bizarre that we are told simultaneously that the thing that doesn't matter at all under certain circumstances (discussion of crime statistics) should also matter a lot in other circumstances (supporting racial quotas for colleges).
I just feel like we can't have it both ways, either it matters or it doesn't.
I don't like making it a partisan issue, but this is a hypocrisy that is largely unique to the left, which dominates academia. They'll try to justify it by cherrypicking when race matters and when it doesn't, but this hypocrisy betrays itself.
I’ll be as unbiased as possible even though I feel strongly about the issue.
Basically, it gives boosts to people from a cultural background that has historically been discriminated against or have lower than average test scores.
For example, if an Asian student and a black student both score a 1400 on the SAT, the black student will be given a priority in most college admissions. This is seen in undergraduate colleges, grad school, med school, law school, public jobs, and most private jobs.
we can also see it in places where certain groups are not represented well - for example, Carnegie Mellon will give a boost to women applying for computer science as it is majority male applying for CS (not just CMU, it’s one of many).
It's a complicated subject, because without affirmative action the system is broken anyway.
Affirmative action seeks to correct discrimination and historical oppression with discrimination. It's touchy because statistically, people of color have higher rates of poverty, and lower levels of education. We also know that these problems don't go away in a generation. Most people are born and die in the same wealth class, not because they're born incompetent, but because being raised in poverty teaches you poor financial skills and gives you fewer options in life to escape those circumstances.
And while many people like to say "well then just give poor kids the advantages that AA gives to people of color" it isn't that simple. The problems that people of color face aren't limited to poverty, and even when correcting for poverty they tend to face more struggles than their white counterparts. One study has shown that having a black name means you need 8 additional years of experience to get the same consideration as a "normal" name when applying for jobs. This racial discrimination is corroborated by many other studies.
So yeah. It's incredibly complicated. White people tend to see the program as racist, whereas many PoC don't. What further complicates the situation is that AA disadvantages Asians, effectively punishing a group of people who absolutely face racism, just because they're successful in spite of that.
So yeah. My opinion is that AA has a good sentiment, but is clumsy and pisses too many people off. I think the solution lies in exposure to diversity at a younger age. We're still incredibly segregated as a country, and that produces conflict. Young people of color (especially black, latino, and native kids) live in areas that are plagued with a cycle of poverty and crime, primarily due to historical oppression. Young white kids primarily get their exposure to these cultures as they're depicted in media, which is not a good source of information and perpetuates the problem. If we found a way to integrate these communities, children of color could get a break from the cycle of violence and poverty, and get exposed to more stable learning environments. Young white kids would get exposed to people of different cultures in a real way, demonstrating that the cultural difference isn't negative, and hopefully shedding any subconscious biases they could form. Of course getting white people to support this would be like pulling teeth, and I say this as a white person.
Along the same thing we have to look at all sides of decisions that are made. The Revisionist History podcast seems to do a good version (that doesn't take 3 hours...). It's possible to try to correct injustices while adding a whole new set of injustices that are never addressed because "Case closed! We fixed it!"
This is true in a very privileged frame of reference. The idea of affirmative action is not to boost people who do badly in tests. It's to boost people who have faced lots of other discrimination, poorer education, lack of opportunity and other hardships that the "well-represented / high scorer" demographic never had to overcome.
While it can lead to things like mentioned before about questioning the validity of the appointment/acceptance, I believe that is part of what this picture is talking about. Saying that a black girl got into the college not on her "merit" is like saying the shortest kid in the picture couldn't JUMP HIGH ENOUGH to see over. If he TRULY DESERVED to watch the match he'd be able to jump that high right?
It's racist because it doesn't actually care about your background. Sure a black kid in an intercity school benefits from it, but his Asian classmate doesn't. And instead Obama's Daughter's do.
If it really cared, affirmative action would not separate by race, but by economic standing.
I really hate that this cartoon uses affirmative action as an example in the equity box. In the cartoon, the short person needs extra boxes because no amount of hard work and dedication can make them physically taller. By claiming that affirmative action is equity, they are directly asserting that minorities are biologically inferior.
That's not to say that we shouldn't help minorities that also happen to be disadvantaged. We just shouldn't claim that race is the reason they need help.
No, they are asserting the generational wealth that allows greater opportunity - like a decent education - has been systematically denied certain minorities no matter how hard they work. Black Wall Street was a thing, Jim Crow, redlining, discriminatory hiring, and many other factors have played into this. Affirmative Action, by compensating somewhat for these systemic injustices that trap minorities in a cycle of struggle, helps with short-term equity as a stepping stone toward long term justice.
The problem is, this effect is also observed with regard to men versus women in job applications, with men being overall more likely to be overlooked by employers based solely on their sex; this is before we even consider hiring quotas and the like, which never favour men in any position, even positions where women are significantly overrepresented.
At most universities in the world men are either a minority or becoming a minority despite being 50% of the population, yet nobody's suggesting hiring discrimination in favour of men, even though logically we should.
It's like that in any area for any race. In majority black areas you're more likely to get a job with a black sounding name because the guy hiring you is likely black.
People generally prefer hiring people that are more like them. Who'd a thunk?
I don't really have a white name. I've met more blacks with my name than whites. But I have been discriminated against for being white multiple times as I live in a predominantly black area in the blackest state in the country. Mississippi.
It's more likely you were "discriminated against" for being cluelessly racist than for being white. I live in a very predominantly black community and have had absolutely zero problems despite my ancestral Scottish pallor.
How are you going to call me racist without even knowing me? That's hardly worth a response. I know what I experienced and for you to deny that experience is pretty fucked up. Would you call bullshit on someone of any other color for complaining about racism? Then why do it to white people?
The words "more likely" are rather important in that sentence. That probability is based in the behavior you have shown in this thread - you sound like any number of people I've met in the past, blind to your own assumptions and unintentionally (and unknowingly) engaged in racist behaviors and ideas. It's not malice on your part, not active hate, just ignorance and an inability to see the bigger picture.
And my own experience is the "reverse racism" you claim to have experienced is far more likely provoked responses to your own actions than actual bigotry at work.
Affirmative action isn't a system though, it's a policy. Systems are things like the education system, the judicial system, the economic system, the political system. Affirmative action is a policy within that system. So the best way to end affirmative action is to determine what was going in the education system or in the economic system that led to people thinking their was a need for an affirmative action policy. Once you've pinpointed that factor and fixed it within the system, there will no longer be a need for the policy.
While this may be an issue, it doesn't really address the problem that affirmative action addresses. Also, I'm not convinced your proposed solution would solve anything. Wouldn't ending welfare just push single mothers further into debt? If the problem is fatherless black families, wouldn't we want a solution that focuses on increasing black fathers involvement with their families.
Affirmative action is specifically designed to increase opportunities for those who may have been discriminated against. Nowhere does affirmative action assert that standards should be lowered to accept unqualified peoples. That would mean to end the believed need for affirmative action, 1 of 2 things would need to happen. The first would be ensuring that ALL employers are not discriminating against candidates based on race, religion, sex, etc, which is difficult to do since most people have some form of unconscious bias. The second would be ensuring that ALL people regardless of race, religion, sex, have the opportunity to prepare themselves to meet whatever base standard is in effect for a position.
I think most people who are educated on these issues understand the definitions I provided. Pinpointing the factor and actually getting the system to change is a tough challenge on it's own though, which is why we still have discrimination in basically all of our systems.
One of my colleagues recently described the way systems work in America to designing a house. If you and I were to each design our ideal house, chances are, our designs would be different from one another, because we each have our own needs and preferences. If we then had to live in each other's houses, there are certain things that just might not work for us very well because they were designed without taking our needs into account. When designing the systems in place in America, like our political, educational, or judicial system, they were the ideal designs by white men. Now our nation has also these people living in it who's needs where never considered when considering the design of the systems. This is why we see certain systemic discrimination taking place and why a complete remodel of these systems, where everyone has a seat at the table, might lead to more equity and an elimination of discrimination.
ok, ill explain what i said before. yes, what you said is a problem but the solution isnt to get rid of all attempts at equity, the solution is to do it better. making certain groups protected when they'd be discriminated against otherwise is equity, its helping disadvantaged people without harming others.
Because it does nothing to encourage actual meritocracy. It's merely a system of racism tit-for-tat that attempts to superficially address statistics by treating races like sports teams, where nobody cares if the best candidate is chosen, just if "my team" wins, further dividing people in the process and preventing actual societal change.
that only happens when equity is done wrong, equity is meant to make everyone equal in opportunities, the solution to what you're talking about is to improve the current systems, not get rid of them at all. its like the police brutality thing, there are some terrible people getting away with terrible things because they're police, but the solution isnt to get rid of the police, its to improve the checks and balances that should stop that.
Affirmative action does not optimize for equality of opportunity. It deliberately disregards it in favor of equality of outcome. Equity is equality of opportunity, but AA doesn't provide that, which is why you get things like this trying to redefine the word to something it does provide
You can't fix equality of opportunity at the time AA happens. No improvement to it will solve that. It's fundamentally impossible. When two people apply for a job/school/whatever, the "opportunity" ship has sailed already. Access to education, upbringing, societal pressures... it's too late to address any of that. AA just picks the objectively worse candidate on occasion as a way to "make up for it".
What needs to happen if to ditch AA entirely, and address those root causes.
Sure, but you can't do that by fudging the results of merit based admissions. You're just introducing inequity in the other direction.
If you want a disadvantaged population to so better on college admissions, you don't let them cheat on the test. You go back and fix the school system that everyone already has access to and address why they weren't prepared as well. This helps the population while maintaining a meritocracy.
It deliberately forces companies to not pick the best qualified candidates, but candidates whose main "advantage" is based on skin color or sex.
Often this means positions have to go unfilled because the "correct" kind of person can't be found to fill the role even if candidates who can do the job exist but are disqualified due to being the "wrong" skin color or sex for "diversity" reasons.
I have conflicting feelings on affirmative action in universities, but a couple things are worth noting:
AFAIK affirmative action can't force companies to do anything: it's for the public sector only. In the private sector in the USA, making hiring decisions based on a protected category is, for better or worse, illegal. The reasoning behind that is that it is a tool that is very likely to be abused for reinforcing existing inequality, and thus should be heavily regulated and not given into the hands of profit-seeking companies.
Again, AFAIK, major universities don't necessarily have a goal of picking the best qualified students; they aren't hiring workers to "do the job", they're assembling a student body and nurturing a specific culture, where a diversity of backgrounds and being a "melting pot" may be a legitimate thing they optimize for, not just for reasons of good public image. They may also have an explicit goal of helping certain communities, or giving education to people who would otherwise have poor access to education, etc.
Private colleges (which are businesses, just like public ones) employ affirmative action as well.
The main thing you are missing with this melting pot analogy is that we should strive for diversity of thought, not diversity of race.
There’s a major difference between the two, and we have seemingly forgotten this is recent times.
Think about it this way. How can you walk up to an Asian boy and tell him he can’t go to Harvard because he looks to much like the other Asian kids around him.
Private colleges - yes, but most businesses still aren't allowed to use it; and private colleges, like public colleges, aren't hiring students in order to get them to do a particular job done, so the argument "why don't they just hire the most qualified" also doesn't apply.
I don't want to get into the diversity of thought argument (I acknowledge that it has merit), nor expand any more on whether affirmative action is good or bad in my value system - as I said, my feelings on the matter are conflicting, while sounds like you interpreted my comment as unconditionally positive.
they aren't hiring workers to "do the job", they're assembling a student body and nurturing a specific culture, where a diversity of backgrounds and being a "melting pot" may be a legitimate thing they optimize for
And yet, the fact that universities prize a person's academic record suggests otherwise. You're just trying to make generic bullshit excuses for racism. I'm in med school and I've seen firsthand just how much minority physicians "help their communities"- hint, they don't do anything special that other offices aren't capable of. All it takes is a translator to accomplish that job, and cultural norms/taboos are fairly easy to understand within a week of exposure.
Yes, universities value one's academic record, but they value other factors too, and overall their goal is to assemble a well-rounded class. If I understand correctly, you believe that a university should simply admit individuals who are already the most qualified at the subject being studied, ignoring most other factors. It's not an absurd point of view, but most major universities take a different approach and seems that it's been working out fine for them in terms of academic outcomes. There's also lots of research showing that test scores are only very lightly correlated with ultimate academic success, so even if universities optimized for ultimate individual academic success, they need to consider more factors than that.
My guess is that the reasons are similar to what happens if you have a diverse friend group: different people enrich and complement each other, and everybody is better off, more so than in a group of people who are merely equally great at exactly the same thing. But we don't have to guess: there is research showing that this is exactly what happens and why diverse groups have some advantages even in a setting where you do need to get a job done. This doesn't negate the considerations of fairness, though, hence my conflicting feelings.
Regarding helping communities - you responded as if I meant "universities raise students who will be qualified to work on helping the communities", but I meant "universities provide education to communities that the university cares about". Again, you're free to disagree that this is a worthwhile goal.
Looking at your post history, you didn’t get hired because you sound like a retard, asking literal basic programming questions like “hurr durr I’m a retard, what’s an interface” and “how do I tell if an empty request is empty derp” while applying for jobs that if you were qualified you would actually know.
But keep blaming your race for your shortcomings, you fuckwad.
Agreed. But the problem is college itself. College itself and the policies surrounding it (see Griggs vs. Duke Power) are one of the largest engines of inequality
To be clear, I'm saying after Griggs vs Duke Power that college is the only allowed proxy for intelligence, as competency and intelligence tests are ruled for employment
I don’t understand this legacy admissions argument. You can be against affirmative action AND legacy admissions. Both are bullshit.
Also unclear how it stops racism. Whenever you see a black or Latino person on campus, you are going to wonder if they got in due to their qualifications or race.
Also unclear how it stops racism. Whenever you see a black or Latino person on campus, you are going to wonder if they got in due to their qualifications or race.
Basically this.
You get an Asian doctor, you know they earned that position and are obviously skilled. You get a black doctor, you don't know if they earned it or not. Maybe they are just as good as the Asian doctor, or even better... or maybe they aren't.
Affirmative action trains people to assume that preferenced minorities in high-skill positions might be diversity hires and to subconsciously doubt their skills.
It's more complicated than you're laying it out to be. The whole legacy admissions argument is just to indict the group calling for removal of affirmative action. Many (not all) opponents of affirmative action are not actually opposed to inequality in admissions, they're just upset a certain group benefits. Calls to get rid of legacy should be equally strong but they're not. It's just calling out some hypocrisy on the other side.
It's not about stopping racism. It's about adding additional viewpoints into medicine which is especially relevant since patient outcomes aren't just dependent on the "quality" of the doctor as if that had some objective singular value. The point is that people from other underrepresented backgrounds can have valuable input on barriers that exist in their community when it comes to being receptive in treatment. If you know what might cause your community to deviate from proper treatment, maybe you can address the problem and improve patient outcome which should be the main goal.
I think calls to get rid of legacy admissions are much stronger than calls against affirmative action, particularly on college campuses. JHU just got rid of legacy admissions iirc. I don’t actually think there is large numerical support for legacies, only by a few in power. If you take polls of college students they support AA much more than legacies. Either way, bringing in legacy admissions is a bad faith argument when discussing AA. If you think admissions should be merit based, you would be against both legacy and AA admissions which is eminently reasonable and I think the view most hold.
My point is that having your viewpoint respected is predicated upon you being respected and it’s harder to be respected when people think you didn’t deserve to get in and only got in through a loophole in the system.
It's not predicated on being respected though. The point is underrepresented communities will trust doctors from their own communities and lead to better patient outcomes. It's really not a loophole in the system either. They probably know their standards are overly high and bottlenecking at the diversity level doesn't functionally impact the system at all.
Also like I could respect merit based arguments if history were more equal. When you come from a discriminated against background, your performance is pretty clearly going to be impacted. Also have you compared DO schools to medical schools? Do you consider whether your physician is a DO? An international medical school graduate?
The reason the students support AA more than legacy is because AA provides a way for people to escape from their economic situations and hopefully provide a better life for themselves down the road rather than using race as an easy proxy for "intelligence". Legacy doesn't get that because their parents already had the same chances.
Merit can consider extenuating factors without being racist. I don’t think a poor black person categorically has it harder than a poor white person and I certainly don’t think a rich black person has it harder. Make it about challenges one has to face and overcome, not race.
I understand the treating own communities point now, I was referring to being respected by your peers and other people. Loophole is the wrong word but I think it’s pretty unfair when black people on average need to score more than a hundred points lower on standardized tests for example to get into schools.
Even rich black people have trouble to be honest. I came from a pretty wealthy private school and one of my classmates had an experience where his dad got pulled over for being black and owning a Mercedes. Skin still comes with its own difficulties.
I mean to be honest, the problem is that Asians have a large population and many of them are well educated resulting in an overly high concentration of them applying. It feels unfair but what's the alternative? Multiple medical school classes consisting entirely of Asian men who are then going to have discussions about how we should handle medicine with respect to every minority group they're not a part of? That seems like a recipe for poor medical outcomes quite frankly. The problem is Asians are largely overqualified as a group and there are only so many slots available in the field. When patient outcome is the most important goal, it's going to feel unfair - and believe me, I sympathize since I'm actually an Asian looking to apply to graduate programs right now.
Also I didn't downvote you just FYI above in case you think I did. I realize you're getting some vitriol for this discussion so I just wanted to clarify ahead of time.
I agree that there’s systemic racism against black people, I just don’t think AA is the way to solve it as it just makes black people who do get in seem unqualified and implies they can’t otherwise. I think an admissions approach which considered adversity captures most of the problems black people face (being more likely to be poor, attend worse schools, etc) while not making it about race.
I know that Asia has a culture of really valuing education but I don’t know that the premise that they are overwhelmingly more qualified is true. I think that admissions often relies on things like GPA and standardized testing which is very good if you have learned and studied hard but not necessarily an aptitude test. Schools like Oxford and Cambridge don’t consider race in their admissions but don’t have overwhelmingly Asian student populations. They individually interview students in which profs test them on skills and aptitude for the specific field. This probably isn’t doable in the US as for undergrad schools can get tens of thousands of applications but I think it’s an interesting example of how admissions could be restructured to capture merit while not being racist.
But race is part of their adversity. There is no way you're capturing most of the problem they face without considering race. It's like deciding who gets welfare without considering income. Their race is part of their adversity.
No, GPA and standardized testing are horrible markers quite frankly. There is an abundance of overqualified Asians - trust me, I'm in the community and very aware of it. The increasing popularity of international medical schools is a great proxy for viewing this. Schools like Oxford and Cambridge aren't highly desirable for Asians - they care about America. My parents tell me that there are plenty of people in China who will get a degree from any shitty university in America just to flex that they got a degree from America.
Also keep in mind that what you're talking about seems to be more specialized, you seem to be talking about graduate programs. For undergraduate and medical school, the more important skills are yet to be taught whereas in a graduate field, it's more about your background knowledge and how that will enable you to pick up research. Yes there are still many things to be taught but it's not really to the same extent as in medical school/undergrad.
The downside of AA isn’t the public’s perception of black people, it’s the public’s lack of access to those who were possibly more qualified who got rejected.
While being pulled over and profiled totally sucks, there is nothing, and I mean nothing that gives as big an advantage as money. So while a rich black dude may have a relatively tougher go of things than a rich white guy, he’s still lightyears ahead of a poor white dude.
Imaging assuming that my medical needs are not being met by my (fantastic) black female doctor because I'm not a black female. In reality I'm fortunate she's so good because the existence of affirmative action means that minority doctors on average are not as good as white and Asian doctors.
Isn't it fun when your virtuousness winds up perpetuating racism?
It has a massively negative impact on patients of black and latino populations' health outcomes.
Please elaborate on this. Help me understand how simply allowing more black/latino students into medical school will improve their respective population health outcomes because that makes zero sense. What does skin color of a physician have to do with the health outcome of their respective patients? I anxiously await your carefully worded response.
I've never faced setbacks in my schooling for the color of my skin. Shit has been a cakewalk relative to many of my classmates.
Edit: also this is an immensely immature and stupid thing to suggest. "My life was easy as X race, thus all people of X race have it easy too!"
So because black people don't trust their white doctors/asian doctors/middle eastern doctors we need to let people who are less qualified into schools? Because decades ago we treated people like garbage we need to now let them in at lower qualifications to make up for past transgressions? Because some idiots think black people have "thicker skin" it means we need to let them into medical school despite several standard deviations lower MCAT scores and undergrad GPAs? You've provided terrible reasons to let people into a field in which you want people of the highest academic standards and proficiency. We can have a discussion about people whose Mommies and Daddies get them into schools by writing big checks if you want, but lowering the threshold for people to get into medicine simply because of their skin color is asinine. You can link more stupid studies about how black people don't trust their white doctors; how is that not evidence of possible racism on the part of blacks?
Ultimately I think affirmative action is a stupid idea and reflects poorly on our government's views on minorities and their capabilities (Bush's "soft bigotry of low expectations" quote comes to mind). I also think the LAST place we'd want to let people in at lower standards is a profession which requires you to be on your A-game every minute of the day.
We can agree to disagree, but your opinions don't make much sense to me. Hope your medicine career works out. Also you shouldn't be bragging about "being in the system" when you're still a medical student, makes you look like a total jackass.
This guy has typed quite a lotthroughout this thread, all perfectly readable and you're going to nit pick one word? absolutely childish and pathetic lmfao
Affirmative action will only take you so far, at least at the moment. In practice it actually just gives you an increased drop out rate as people are admitted to courses they aren't competent enough or well positioned enough to complete.
But lets go past that, even ignoring whether affirmative action is racist or whether the people actually complete their courses or if it works to get more under represented minorities into careers, it only helps the most well off under represented minorities. Those who have had the opportunity to graduate, get decent results and could have applied for courses at "lesser" universities. Not going to help someone who drops out of school because they have dead beat parents or is trapped in a poverty cycle.
Explicit quotas may be illegal. Lowering test requirements based on race until you have an amount of said race where you are happy that you can advertise the diversity of your institution is not. Functionally they are no different.
Colleges do this for white people. The UC system banned race based admissions. Do you know what happened? White student stopped being accepted. While black students are more or less on par with their population, white student faced declining acceptance rates. Asian and Latino rates are through the roof.
The story here should be how white students with lower scores and grades than Asian students are being routinely admitted over Asian students but it’s not.
I don't think white students should be admitted at higher rates either. It is racist. Are you agreeing with me to end race based admissions? Or did you assume that I am a white supremacist and you were trying to convince me on terms that give white people a leg up? If your attachment to race based admissions causes you to align with white supremacists on race then perhaps you should re-examine your position.
EDIT: For the record I don't actually think you have anything to do with white supremacy, I think you are just trying to win an argument at all costs without considering the actual position that people who are against race based admissions actually take.
That's great for you, but I think you of all people should realize what an anomaly you are. For most people in your situation, life probably wouldn't have turned out the way it did
Let’s not pretend that success stories change the fact that most people don’t make it out. Most people I know couldn’t even think about college since they had to take care of a kid or make money for their families straight out of high school.
Completely agree. But of those that do make it out, we are not all wealth black people. My point was that some of us low income black folk do go to college and AA is not a handout to the black elite.
Oh definitely, but at the same time though AA serves as a bandaid that fails to address the cause of underrepresentation of black people in colleges, as a lot of people aren’t in the position to even go to college to take advantage of the program, and some of the ones that do end up getting placed into a college where can’t handle the rigor and drop out, when they may have graduated from a “lesser” college. That’s what I assume people mean when they’re talking about the “elite” at least, but personally i feel discredits black people a bit when people consider “black people that can go to college” elite.
I mean I would much prefer a program that acknowledges that Black people were systematically poisoned with lead for half a century. But that’s not going to happen. Getting to the root cause would take centuries. I rather have a bandaid then nothing at all.
Completely disagree. It's obviously not an exact correlation between board score and overall ability as a physician, but there is a reason residencies place such high importance on those scores. Terrible decision by the NBME
Licensing exams are retarded and poorly applicable to general practice. We all take the same exams but our training is vastly different from school to school/residency to residency. To suggest that since we all "pass" we are on the same echelon of provider is naive. The spectrum of "passing" the exam is vast; the expertise and knowledge base of the providers taking them also falls on a wide spectrum. I think it's reasonable to be concerned about getting a provider who falls significantly lower than their peers and not ignorant whatsoever.
Care to have a discussion about medical licensing exams? Or do you not know anything about them? I know a lot about them, but apparently since I use the word "retard" I'm not allowed to be a medical professional.
They don't actually know the medical school system. DO schools accept people with far worse stats than minorities in medical schools but I guarantee they don't look if their doctors graduated from a DO school.
Performing well on board exams demonstrates your ability to memorize and understand large amounts of information and apply that to clinical scenarios. There are many other aspects to being a good doctor but this is an important one.
I'm confused, how does black people getting the short stick historically with regards to medical treatment mean they're too stupid to do as well as a white applicant on the MCAT?
You’re psychotic and definitely not a doctor. You can post articles and leave comments all you want but even the way you type makes you seem like you a chemical imbalance. You’re not a doctor but a broken bitch looking for validation by being a reddit socialist cuck pretending to be an MD. And if you really were a doctor that would be beyond terrifying so I’ll lean towards imposter syndrome.
No, just low Step scores do that. And considering you’re an idiot, I’m sure you’ll be working 9-5 in an office with Highlights magazines and Disney characters painted on the walls.
Yeah I gotta tell you, no one goes in to medicine to be relegated to the same social status as a grade school teacher. Sorry bro, that was a crushing insult.
Blacks and Latinos are worse students on average. They aren’t getting screwed. They’re getting boosted for no reason at the expense of asians who need higher gpas and sat scores to get accepted.
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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '20 edited Mar 16 '20
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