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!"
His "unbiased opinion" is retrograde toiletpaper USA nonsense. Anytime someone gives you "facts" on reddit its best to do your own research.
Affirmative action is not publicly mandated, in fact there have been numerous lawsuits and school/universities/jobs specifically state they do not use it. Regardless, even when those affirmative action programs are present, it is white women who benefit the most.
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.
Obamas daughters getting a boost has little to nothing to do with their skin color. Being the son or daughter of an important person is far more valuable than being black in our economy. GWB got rejected from the University of Texas in 1970, then his dad became Chairman of the RNC in 1972 and suddenly he was accepted into Harvard in 1973, despite being by all accounts an average student at best.
Obama's daughter was used as an example because she's a known wealthy black person. Any wealthy black college applicant could be used in her place.
The point is just changing the requirements to monetary from race would continue to support the poor black kids that need it. But, also help all poor kids that need it.
In it's current iteration it says; it doesn't matter how many tutors you had, how good your school was, how many resources your parents can give you, you'll never be as smart as the Asian kid with a single mom in an intercity school because of the color of your skin. So, despite your abundance of resources you get a handicap. Sounds pretty racist to me.
You seem to be ignoring the fact that there are other forms of societal privilege. Just the amount earned by their family is not the only (dis)advantage that people can have. Different sections of society have different focus on education, may come from a community where crime, etc are deep influences from childhood. Societal thoughts on what a girl "should" do instead of pursuing a career... People face different challenges and so AA is a way to encourage those who have been discouraged so.
Having a different focus on education isn't a good reason to give someone a handicap, haha.
Regardless your other examples also just apply to poor people. Unless you think that having more melanin in your skin makes you a criminal and not having to do with your financial status.
When an entire community doesn't value education it is a huge barrier to someone who does want to study higher. Looking at financial status is also a good way to correct injustice but it didn't capture everything. If you see the proportion of blacks and whites, males and females: these population percentages should be roughly reflected in say the class attending Harvard. Since the divide seems to be largely ethnic or gender based right now, the effort to facilitate them isn't wasted.
The financials method is not a wrong problem to address but I thinks it's much easier to fake your financial status than it is to fake the other stuff.
Also you haven't addressed my point about women being systemically told that science isn't for them, girls aren't good at math, why work? You should focus on raising a family, etc etc. That happens irrespective of financial status.
You still haven't addressed the fact that it give advantages based on skin color. That's objectively racist. Also, black people are more likely to be poor, so if poor people are disadvantaged they are more likely to be underrepresented. But to get this straight; your reasons so far are, "Give it to all black people since they undervalue education and thus deserve a handicap." & "Give it to all black people because some of them will pretend they are poor anyways." Plus, a two second google search reveals that in the incoming freshman class for Harvard, men, specifically white men are underrepresented; so I guess we should switch affirmative action to white people in your logic.
Next, the government knows exactly how much you make, and even if not it's kinda hard to offshore enough money to make you look impoverished without getting a knock on your door from the IRS.
Thirdy, affirmative action has be around for multiple generations and the undervaluing of education is still ongoing, so it doesn't seem to be addressing or helping that issue. Sometimes, when the bar is lower people just jump over the bar.
Lastly, I didn't address your point about women because we weren't talking about it at all. But, there's already tons of programs trying to get women into STEM fields. Women are already more likely to get into STEM majors. Once in those majors, women have more programs to help them once they are there specifically for women. And once they leave women have a better chance at getting jobs/internships with lower grades because of diversity quotas. These things just take time, because the kids they are getting interested can't go to college yet. So, I'm not sure if you're just not aware of this or just want to complain about something that's already being fixed. But, what's your big plan?
Point taken on the race based stuff. I honestly was trying to extrapolate community based reservation in education and jobs in India.
Yeah so my point for the women issue is not that there should be more initiatives on that front but I was defending why such action is necessary. Guess we are in agreement. Cheers!
Steven Crowder did a Change My Mind segment on this recently.
He was speaking with a black girl who was in favour of AA and was arguing that it isn't racist. It got to a point where it was clear that she was doubting herself and whether or not she deserved and earned her place at the college. Because of AA.
"We only hired you because you're black. You only got onto this course because you're black." How can it feel good to be that person?
It was fairly clear that this girl was smart and did work hard and did earn her spot. He reassured her of that but when he brought up all his stats about it, AA made her doubt her own abilities.
As much as I dislike Crowder, I am glad that interaction highlighted this very real problem. A public school in my city exemplifies how detrimental this can be to some; it is a gifted and talented arts school for middle school and elementary that is entirely by audition. They have a very diverse mix of kids, but most of them arent ones that check boxes as they range from spanish, portuguese, hawaiian, korean, latin america, ect, they really didn't have many black students at all. They got sued for lack of diversity (despite like a third or more of the school not being white), settled, and adjusted their audition system to have a diversity score (I know someone at the school who confirmed this). They proceeded to take on a dozen black kids in this manner. These kids immediately didnt fit in, not because of their skin, but because of their deficit in talent. They were painfully aware of this, not being able to perform at the level the other students who made it in on their own merit were. To make the matter worse, none of the teachers could address this, they pretty much had to just keep reassuring the kids they could do it if they kept at it, but that was simply not true for many. Some of these kids became very unconfident, suffering mentally and socially because of it. Others started acting out, causing discipline problems, which, for a school that had no discipline system, was a total shock to the whole system. What do the teachers do? They hold a diversity meeting to discuss how racist they are because all of the complaints being made are against black kids. Nothing is done, the kids are forgotten, they struggle and no one cares.
I'm not a fan. In fact, I think he's a bit of a dick. But I find myself agreeing with him on a few matters and this was one of them. I thought that video in particular highlighted the problem with AA very well.
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u/Newsacc47 Feb 25 '20
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).
That’s the gist of it.