ehhhh.....Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
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ehhhh.....Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
Damn WC, did one of them yell at you at a gas station?Quote:
Originally Posted by Blake
Never said my verbal skills were good, and yes, I have had it hard finding employment when I needed to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blake
I'll repost what I said earlier and what you've never dealt with:Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
I don't find [in my experience] that there are "real fears" that go along with Affirmative Action, because I think the professional processes ensure that all such fears are eradicated as the process wears along. And I've been in too many places where the programs you're worried about are in place and have learned through those experiences that the fears that you express are unfounded. In years at an Ivy League school, the only person whose qualifications to be in school that I ever questioned was a big white dude from New Jersey. In years in a professional school, the people who worried me most in terms of being poor professionals were the professional legatees and trust fund babies.
* * * *
Ultimately, the sorts of people that you fear are getting preferrential treatment and becoming presumptively-underqualified surgeons are an entirely different group of people than those who you say are getting jobs despite communication quirks. I'd challenge your assessment that "most blacks have poor vocabulary skills," but there's little I can do to convince you to disavow the sort of bias that leads to such delusional conclusions. Are there a substantial number of black Americans who speak poorly? Sure. Are there an equally substantial number of white Americans who speak poorly? Absolutely.
There are, to me, still serious systemic inequalities that make things like consideration of race a reasonable question in arenas like college admissions. Admittedly, that might just be me.
I understand. Since you haven't experienced it, it doesn't exist.Quote:
Originally Posted by FromWayDowntown
OK...
I wont argue with that, but do two wrongs make a right? That's often what affirmative action has done. To meet a quota system, higher qualified candidates would be bumped out of a slot to make racial quotas. I think that's been done away with, but it used to be the commonplace.Quote:
Originally Posted by FromWayDowntown
Well, in my experience, far more blacks speak poorly than white. Being in the Army for 11 years, I saw a good mix of people from all over. I say there's a significant difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by FromWayDowntown
How can you say someone should get preferred treatment based on race? Would it be right just to higher a black woman to fill a slot just to make a quota? If she's the best applicant, then yes. If she's not the best, it's a disservice to the person who is the best for the slot.Quote:
Originally Posted by FromWayDowntown
"I've been in the Bible every day since I've been the president." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Nov. 12, 2008Quote:
Originally Posted by FromWayDowntown
"This thaw -- took a while to thaw, it's going to take a while to unthaw." --George W. Bush, on liquidity in the markets, Alexandria, La., Oct. 20, 2008
"Anyone engaging in illegal financial transactions will be caught and persecuted." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2008
"I think it was in the Rose Garden where I issued this brilliant statement: If I had a magic wand -- but the president doesn't have a magic wand. You just can't say, 'low gas.'" --George W. Bush, Washington D.C., July 15, 2008
"And they have no disregard for human life." --George W. Bush, on the brutality of Afghan fighters, Washington, D.C., July 15, 2008
"There is some who say that perhaps freedom is not universal. Maybe it's only Western people that can self-govern. Maybe it's only, you know, white-guy Methodists who are capable of self-government. I reject that notion." --George W. Bush, London, June 16, 2008
Not true. What I'm saying is that I was on the front lines -- in places where racial preferences are most significantly in play -- and didn't discern that the racial minorities who had been admitted to highly-competitive programs were at all unqualified to have been admitted. That is, ultimately, what your concern for black surgeons is about -- the notion that those who have been given that opportunity didn't actually deserve it because they weren't sufficiently qualified to beat out the readily-assumed qualifications of their white counterparts. Were that assumption true, of course, it would be patently obvious to a white guy (like me) that the racial minorities in such programs would demonstrate a clear lack of qualifications to be there. And I'm telling you that anecdotally, your assumption is nonsense.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
That's all the more true because if such individuals were under-qualified to compete in those programs, they wouldn't succeed within them. But, again, that's not what I've seen and experienced. I'd be extremely interested for you to put forward some proof to tell me that my observations and experience are somehow unusual. I don't think you can do it.
Frankly, I'd think that in most cases, we're talking about competition on the margins and not instances where there's a gigantic disparity and race is the sole factor favoring the ultimately-chosen candidate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
Or, as you've insinuated in other conversations about these issues, you're just generally inclined to see things in a way that allows you to conclude that there's a significant difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
I suppose we're talking about different things now. The black surgeon example of yours has more to do with admissions to colleges and professional programs than being hired to work a job. Obviously, there's a difference at least insofar as multiple individuals are admitted into schools and professional programs while, in most instances, only one person can get a job. With that said, I do think that it's really hard to ignore the fact that the socio-economic disadvantages in predominantly black neighborhoods tend to be substantial and that even those most devoted to "bettering themselves" face an automatic assumption that they lack the qualifications of those who come from better neighborhoods. I can't imagine that you'd dispute that a student from a highly-competitive school in an upper-middle class suburb who makes B's is quite likely to be seen as a better student than someone coming from a barely-worthy-of-accreditation school in a poverty-class urban enclave who makes straight A's.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
It strikes me as a relatively self-fulfilling matter to refuse to give a slight advantageous nudge in that comparison to the straight A student who has worked hard, despite an oppressive and uninspiring environment. By affording that student an opportunity that would likely be denied in a world where comparisons with other applicants are based solely on objective evaluations of their qualifications is to deny her the opportunity to overcome her environment and, effectively, sentencing her to a life in that environment simply by chance of her birth into it. It's a disservice to her to say that her ability to overcome those substantial obstacles to even reach the point of being competitive with the B student somehow shouldn't be considered in evaluating the two of them.
No, because of affirmative action, the job as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by FromWayDowntown
Can you tell me that schools always fail a student deserving such when the fear of being sued for racism exists?
Can you tell me that employers haven't been required to consider racial quota's that might let this now, under qualified graduate in?
I have no idea what the real numbers are, and I'll bet they are small. My whole point from the start, was that affirmative action has created this as a fear, valid or not. That affirmative action, in the end, does a disservice to minorities that are truly qualified, because of the fear they are a product of affirmative action. You'll never hear an employer say he chose a white candidate over a black for this fear, because he would then be sued in a heartbeat. I'll bet it happens though. It's now not a case of racism, but prejudice, created by affirmative action.
If we've really oppressed poor whitey, you can be sure our civil rights apparatus will eventually rehabilitate poor whitey as an official victim and order damages for all the hurt and injustice inflicted by our sated cosmopolitan elites over the years.
:violin
I oppose preferential treatment of any kind as it relates to employment, education, benefits, etc... offered by a government. Lest we forget about legacy admits at public universities. Of course, if the public sector were not so large, this wouldn't be as much of an issue.
The public magnification of the problem is indeed unfortunate for all involved.
And for any casual bystanders apt to be coarsened by the debate itself.