This was in this week's Indy weekly.

I'd like to know what ppl think. I didn't see a topic on it already.

http://indyweek.com/durham/current/triangles.html

Quote :

"NCSU under investigation Group that played a role in Michigan case limiting affirmative action says N.C. State has too many blacks, Latinos B Y C H A R L E S D U N C A N A Virginia-based think tank that played a significant role in limiting the use of affirmative action in college admissions is now focused on N.C. State University's admissions policies. The Center for Equal Opportunity, devoted to "colorblind" admissions policies for universities, recently released a report accusing N.C. State of weighing race too heavily in its admissions policy. Translation: There are too many black and Latino students on campus. Based on the report, the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into the allegation in July, the university confirmed this week. For the UNC System, the investigation comes as another in a series of criticisms from conservative organizations and think tanks. The Center for Equal Opportunity released a report on N.C State's admissions policies and forwarded it to the Department of Education in 2004. The same organization filed an amicus brief in the University of Michigan case that led to the 2003 Supreme Court decision limiting the role of race in admissions. "These organizations have a right to ask these questions," says Jose Picart, vice provost for diversity and African-American affairs at NCSU. But, Picart said, the school's admissions policies "use race appropriately." Picart said the university learned of the investigation mid-summer and the federal agency requested data at the beginning of the school year. The university has until this month to respond to the requests, according to Picart. It is unknown what specific information the department requested. The investigation is expected to take two or three years. A representative of the Department of Education's Investigation Services said they cannot confirm or deny the existence of any investigations. Several administration officials at N.C. State declined to comment and directed questions to Keith Nichols, news and communications director for the university. Nichols called the investigation a "regulatory compliance issue" and declined to comment further. Roger Clegg, general counsel for the Center for Equal Opportunity, says N.C. State is "still using racial and ethnic preferences" in its admissions policies. Clegg went on to say the school "sets numerical goals" for minority admissions, a policy that has tighter restrictions since the University of Michigan decision by the Supreme Court. "The Supreme Court set limits for the use of racial and ethnic preferences, and N.C. State is going beyond those limits," Clegg says. He later added that he hopes the investigation "requires NCSU to conform its admissions policies to the law." The Center for Equal Opportunity is a think tank opposed to affirmative action, with much of its funding coming from conservative foundations across the country such as the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the Bradley Foundation. Financial records even include $8,500 from Raleigh's own John William Pope Foundation over the last 10 years. Between 1994 and 2004, African-American admissions at N.C. State have fluctuated between 9 and 12 percent. Last year, African Americans made up 10.4 percent of freshman admissions, while white students made up 80.8 percent. That is nowhere near representative of the state's population, which is approximately 21.6 percent black, 4.7 percent Latino and 72.1 percent white, according to the most recent Census data. The Center for Equal Opportunity is affiliated with the Center for Individual Rights, a pro bono law firm that supports conservative causes. The Center for Individual Rights filed the complaint against the University of Michigan eight years ago that resulted in a landmark Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action in 2003. As the trial got under way, the Center for Equal Opportunity published a report criticizing Michigan's admissions policies and filed an amicus brief in support of the suit. The 2003 ruling by the Supreme Court limited the weight public universities can give to race in admissions policies. The decision involved two cases against the University of Michigan, one challenging the law school admissions policy and one against the undergraduate policy. The court ruled in favor of the law school's policy, but against the undergraduate school because, the court said, it violated the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment. The difference between the two is that undergraduate admissions automatically gave points to minority students that equaled approximately one full point in GPA, making race a "deciding factor," the court said. Jack Boger, a distinguished professor in the UNC School of Law, explains the two Michigan rulings this way: Race can be used as a factor in making decisions in college admissions, but it walks a very gray line. "On the one hand, using strict quotas is unconstitutional." But, citing Justice O'Connor's words, Boger says a classroom should have a "critical mass" of minority students. He says setting a "threshold or target" is constitutional and there is a "compelling government interest" in having diversity in the classroom. "Colleges using race in admissions are absolutely justified in doing so," Boger said. In November 2004, the Center for Equal Opportunity presented a report at the Virginia Association of Scholars' annual meeting accusing the University of Virginia, the William and Mary Law School and N.C. State of giving too much weight to race in considering applicants. The report says admissions policies at N.C. State give preference to Latino and African-American students. Clegg said the organization gathered information for the report from publicly available documents and Freedom of Information Act requests by the National Association of Scholars, a conservative association of academics and university administrators. "

11/2/2005 11:34:51 PM

Shit, sorry, forgot to elaborate on the subject

11/2/2005 11:35:14 PM

Well, the free GPA point for being in a minority is a bit fucked up.

11/2/2005 11:56:13 PM

Well, I think it should be absolutely unacceptable to consider race when admitting people to a university. However, the group's assertions, at least as they are represented in the article, are incorrect.

Quote :

"Translation: There are too many black and Latino students on campus."

Using the figures quoted in the article, the reverse is true. Assuming--I disagree with this, but assuming--that a university's enrollment should be of a similar composition to the state it's in, then NC State University has TOO FEW black students and TOO MANY white students.

The article says that NC is 21.6 percent black, while NCSU is only 10.4 percent. NC is 72.1 percent white, but NCSU is 80.8.

The figures they don't mention, which would have a lot more meaning, are the percentages of people from these groups who APPLY to NC State, but even that is a flawed figure in this scenario.

Ideally, the university wouldn't even think about race, and it would exist in a society without the need (perceived or actual) for the institution of racial quotas.


Of course, if you're too stupid to get into NC State, racial disadvantages or not, you've got bigger things to worry about (like, you know, learning to make Chicken Fries-tm-).

11/3/2005 12:03:18 AM

Quote :

"Between 1994 and 2004, African-American admissions at N.C. State have fluctuated between 9 and 12 percent. Last year, African Americans made up 10.4 percent of freshman admissions, while white students made up 80.8 percent. That is nowhere near representative of the state's population, which is approximately 21.6 percent black, 4.7 percent Latino and 72.1 percent white, according to the most recent Census data. "

The complaint seems to be unfounded.

Also, the free GPA point was ruled against (it was a Michigan thing). As long as they don't get other special accommodations based on race while they are actually in the school, I don't see a problem with how state handles minorities (from what little I know about the issue).

11/3/2005 12:05:23 AM

I could see them picking students that were not qualified compared to other students, but compared to students within their own group they were in the top 10%. I wonder if that's what they do now (and why they object to our percentages).

11/3/2005 12:13:08 AM

Hahaha, this is comedy gold. Eliminate racism by telling people we need more diversity; then, stop it by saying it's too diverse

11/3/2005 12:16:30 AM

Mindstorm, i hope that GPA statement isn't true. or i'll be slightly upset.

speaking of admissions... how about scholarships?? i know i've never seen one exclusively for White students.. then again, that'd be racist right? just a thought.

11/3/2005 12:26:38 AM

Read the article, it applied to some Michigan schools that kind of don't do that any more.

11/3/2005 12:30:54 AM

Quote :

" Group that played a role in Michigan case limiting affirmative action says N.C. State has too many blacks, Latinos"

AHAHAHAHAHH

11/3/2005 12:34:31 AM

Quote :

""On the one hand, using strict quotas is unconstitutional.""

Quote :

"He says setting a "threshold or target" is constitutional"

so, in other words, quotas are unconstitutional, but quotas are constitutional... GOT IT!
and seriously, a PROVOST for AFRICAN-AMERICAN AFFAIRS? where the FUCK! is the provost for caucasian affairs? give me a fucking break. if we fire this jackass we ought to be able to trim a few bucks off of next years tuition increase. Then, if we take the nubian message's writers and put em on the technician staff and take away the nubian's funding, we can shave a few bucks off there, too. And hey, maybe we wouldn't have such a shitty ass newspaper, either!

11/3/2005 12:47:55 AM

Threshold != quota

11/3/2005 12:51:44 AM

Quote :

"The article says that NC is 21.6 percent black, while NCSU is only 10.4 percent. NC is 72.1 percent white, but NCSU is 80.8."

And their point? We have a handful of black universities in NC with like 90% minorities... how is that representitive of the demographics of the state?

11/3/2005 12:59:38 AM

ummm, a threshold sounds like a fucking quota to me... "We need to have at least 2000 blacks on campus." what does that mean? That means that at a campus of 30K people, there must be at least 1 black for every 15 people. THATS A FUCKING QUOTA

11/3/2005 7:25:33 AM

Quote :

"The Center for Equal Opportunity, devoted to "colorblind" admissions policies for universities, recently released a report accusing N.C. State of weighing race too heavily in its admissions policy. Translation: There are too many black and Latino students on campus."

Kanye was right. The Center for Equal Opportunity doesn't care about black people.

[Edited on November 3, 2005 at 7:59 AM. Reason : Conservative Think Tank.]

11/3/2005 7:55:42 AM

i know, they care about everyone. what a crazy fucking idea

11/3/2005 8:17:29 AM

well i got in so who cares

11/3/2005 8:48:57 AM

i think the point is they can have a goal and work around that while doing admissions, but they can't just say...we have to have 2000 black ppl so we're letting them in till we hit it. giving some preference to blacks that are similar or maybe a little under certain whites is different than taking blacks over anyone just to hit a quota.

i just dont see what the huge fuss is about. we know that minorities (generally) have come from a crappier economic background and give them a slight bump in working towards higher education (through admissions, special scholarships, etc). i just doubt that throngs of white people are working at BK because they couldnt get into state cuz some retarded/illiterate blacks kid was filling the space.

11/3/2005 9:10:20 AM

i guess it all depends. do they actually mandate that they meet the threshold? if so, its a quota. otherwise, its a goal, which would be quite different.

Quote :

"i just dont see what the huge fuss is about."

you don't see a problem in inherently treating one race differently than another? I sure as hell do. Some people try to rationalize it by saying that the ends justify the means. I, however, believe that discrimination is wrong, no matter what. Its one of the few issues that I actually see as black and white. I firmly believe that race, itself, is entirely irrelevent to a person's qualifications, character, or abilities. So to me, giving anyone preferential treatment, white black men women gay straight, based on anything other than their actual merits is wrong.

Are blacks disproportionately represented in colleges? Maybe so, but its not a function of race. You simply cannot draw up a probabilistic function (function 1) for a person's likelihood for collegiate acceptability based on race alone. Blacks are more likely to be poor than whites, which does have an affect on a person's likelihood for collegiate acceptability. What people then try and argue is that because blacks are poorer, blacks are less likely to be accepted to universities, and that because blacks are more likely to be accepted to universities there must exist some kind of discrimination or inequity (often referred to as a problem of the alleged "achievement gap"). The assumption, then, is that you can make a probabilistic function based on race which gives a person's likelihood for collegiate success (function 2, A(race) = f(race)).

The problem with this assumption is obvious. Blacks are less likely to be accepted to a university, but not because of their skin color. Rather, its because of their underlying tendency to be poorer than whites. Thus, the function of black acceptance to colleges is not based on race, but rather monetary considerations. AKA, function 2 is NOT based on actual race, but rather on monetary considerations, which have a correlation to race (not causality!). Thus, the collegiate acceptance function is NOT A(race) = f(race) but rather, it is A(race) = f(wealth(race)). This function is based on wealth, which can be extrapolated independently of race. Thus, the function can be better described and generalized to everyone as A(wealth) = f(wealth). If you like, you can make a new function based on wealth and race, but then your factor is no longer just race, and, I would argue, your function is actually doubly dependent on wealth.

Thus, the problem is NOT that blacks are underrepresented, but that poorer people are underrepresented. Is the solution to accept more poor people? Nope. That is equally as discriminatory as accepting more black people. The solution is to see if poor people aren't getting admitted (this is assuming that poor people can find a way to pay for college) at the same rate as not poor people. Then, if it is the case that poor people are not being admitted at the same rate, you have to see why. Is it discrimination? Is it intelligence? Is it merit-based? The answer to those questions determines how you proceed.

11/3/2005 10:03:10 AM

like anyone is going to read all that from you.

11/3/2005 10:04:50 AM

Quote :

"Of course, if you're too stupid to get into NC State, racial disadvantages or not, you've got bigger things to worry about (like, you know, learning to make Chicken Fries-tm-)."

Ouch.

That's gotta sting a bit.

11/3/2005 10:07:23 AM

yeah no one is going to read the burros shit, if i wanted to be stupid i could just go sniff some glue and save myself some time

11/3/2005 10:08:57 AM

yeah. thats too bad. I guess logic is just too much for some people to handle, so they choose not to read my stuff.

11/3/2005 10:12:35 AM

i want to see aaronburro and dj lauren have a conversation

i dont know who is more stupid but i bet it would be hillarious

11/3/2005 10:13:53 AM

well, at least you know I would actually address the point, unlike the rest of you fuckers who just decide that ad hominem is the way to go instead of actually, you know, weighing someone's argument. But thx anyway

11/3/2005 10:15:24 AM

i weigh arguements from people who are have worthwhile things to say.

youve proven time after time that you dont have anything worthwhile to say.

so now i dont even bother reading.

11/3/2005 10:17:34 AM

so, in other words, you resort to ad hominem. Got it.

11/3/2005 10:22:00 AM

his point in this thread (big post not original few) actually is one of the more reasonable things ive seen him say.

the problem i have is that you seem to seperate skin color and all other factors for the sake of argument. correlation obviously doesnt equal causation but they arent mutually exclusive either.

[Edited on November 3, 2005 at 12:18 PM. Reason : .]

11/3/2005 12:17:29 PM

Seriously.

I'm not saying I support thresholds. I don't support any race-based admissions whatsoever.

But a threshold system would be something like "The state is 50% black and 50% white, so we will admit at least 40% black and at least 40% white." That's a big difference from a strict quota.

11/3/2005 3:31:09 PM

Quote :

"the problem i have is that you seem to seperate skin color and all other factors for the sake of argument."

i don't do it for the sake of the argument, I do it because it is fucking true! The color of a man's skin does not determine how wealthy he is. It determines what the fucking color of his skin is! Thats it!

If I am told to try and guess the monetary status (rich or poor) of a random person in the US and all I am given is the person's race, then I can not do so. Its impossible. I can, however, deduce which option is the better one to choose based on the race, but thats the best I can do. It is little more than demographics. Blacks tend to be poorer than whites.

Quote :

"correlation obviously doesnt equal causation but they arent mutually exclusive either."

yes. thats why its a correlation and not a causality. The number of pirates is inversely related to global temperatures over the last 300 years. That doesn't mean that higher temperatures are caused by a lack of pirates!

Quote :

"The state is 50% black and 50% white, so we will admit at least 40% black and at least 40% white." That's a big difference from a strict quota."

Is it? If you decide that are going to admit 1000 new students, then by your rationale, you have to admit at least 400 blacks. THATS A QUOTA! Its not a quota from the x black people per white people (although in your example it actually is) strictly, but it still ends up being that way in practice. Instead of it being "4 black people for ever 4 white people," its "4 black people for every 10 people admitted" which equates to "4 black people for every 6 not-black people." Thats a quota, my friend.

11/3/2005 8:15:38 PM

I could copy and paste the last sentence from my post.


But I'm not gonna.

11/3/2005 8:29:02 PM

ok we can get off the quota thing, we've all agreed that it depends HOW they do it. since we dont know we can just drop it for now.

ignoring your blatant strawman pirate argument, i realize that (though my point about them not being mutually exclusive IS valid) i didnt say what i really wanted to. the problem i wanted to address is why blacks are generally poorer. obviosly skin color alone wont determine your ability to be in or your monetary situation but being "black" generally entails more than just having dark skin.

i agree that it wouldnt hurt to looking into descrimination against the poor as well, but its fair to say that poor whites and poor blacks may not be in the same demographic necessarily (poor). that just seems too simplistic. without getting into it more you could talk about societal expectations, role models, historical nature of their situation, culture, etc.

added: so my point is this helps remedy some of the problem, if more needs to be fixed so be it.

[Edited on November 3, 2005 at 8:38 PM. Reason : .]

11/3/2005 8:33:58 PM

Quote :

"I could copy and paste the last sentence from my post. But I'm not gonna."

thats a good thing, because I'd hate to have to do the exact same thing...

Quote :

"ok we can get off the quota thing, we've all agreed that it depends HOW they do it."

actually, we haven't agreed on that. if anything, I have established that a "threshold" is equivalent to a quota.

Quote :

"though my point about them not being mutually exclusive IS valid"

only, its not valid. You haven't supported the point yet.

Quote :

"ignoring your blatant strawman pirate argument"

Only, its not a strawman. The pirate argument uses the definition of correlation to address your unstated assertion that the correlation between being black and being poor is more than just a correlation. In some respects, it is my attempt to say "back up your assertion with facts." You can prove the pirate analogy to be a strawman if you back up your assertion with facts.

Quote :

"being "black" generally entails more than just having dark skin"

This may be true, but guess what? The law effectively asserts that "being black" means "having a darker skin tone." It is de facto. Thus, for the purpose of this argument, being black means the same, because by the law's definition of "black," almost all people who have dark skin (excluding asians and middle easterners and hispanics, who don't necessarily have "dark skin," but have skin which is "darker" than a caucasian's) are "black" and almost all people who don't aren't.

Quote :

"but its fair to say that poor whites and poor blacks may not be in the same demographic necessarily (poor)."

I'm not entirely sure. I don't have statistics to really prove it one way or the other. Thus, I will instead abide by the assumption on which civil rights' laws were based: that all else being equal, race determines nothing except the color of a man's skin.

Quote :

"without getting into it more you could talk about societal expectations, role models, historical nature of their situation, culture, etc."

Societal expectations are not a function of race. Even though we choose to naturally segregate ourselves (thus creating separate societies), that doesn't make any action which is the result of segregated societal influences actually the result of race, itself. If societal expectations are to blame for "discrimination," then the proper course of action is to change those societal expectations.

As for role models, am I to assume that blacks can only have blacks as role models and whites only whites and that such a "rule" is mandated by race alone? Nope. Its a societal expectation.

The "historical nature of their situation" is really only applicable within the first twenty years or so of the change in the situation. It is basically a buffer zone between the old and the new. After the buffer, things should be radically different, and we should expect that the effects of the changes would be fully felt. Thus, the only real vestige of the "historical situation" would be the emotional scars of those who were old enough to remember what went on. But, those "scars" are emotional, and do not have a tremendous direct effect on how the system works today. They are personal and internal, rather than institutional. Those scars had a much bigger effect during the buffer period, and thats why I give you a buffer period.

Culture... Come on. There is no such thing as "black culture" in the US. The term is little more than a way for blacks who are high and mighty about being black to appear not to be high and mighty about being black. Are you or your parents truly from somewhere uniquely different than the US but you now live in the US? If so, then you've got a different culture, and a legitimate one at that. Otherwise, your culture is "American." The differences that we see in preferences for music and religion and grammatical ability (or lack thereof) are mainly the result of wealth and societal expectations, neither of which is a function of race. The only thing that might be more related to race is religious preference, as blacks in the US are overwhelmingly likely to be Christian. This is the product of slavery, where religion was sought as a refuge. It is, effectively, an emotional safety net, but people don't like to see religion that way. Thus, when slavery ended, the attraction to Christianity stayed for the former slaves, especially since they really knew of very little else, save for the few oral traditions which survived and were not stamped out by the slave-holders.

That notwithstanding, nowhere in anthropology will you see "culture" being defined solely as being "having a propensity to have religion X." Thus, even "culture" in america is NOT based solely on race.

11/3/2005 10:15:54 PM

Dude, make shorter posts... Pick one or two points you want to make and let the rest simmer.

11/3/2005 10:52:13 PM

i know, its so difficult. But if I just say "X is the case, jackass!" then I aint really supporting my point. And, my points are so often rooted in things more complex than "A implies B," that I must fully explain them. that makes me a sad burr0

11/3/2005 11:22:04 PM

Dude, you arent even making a point. You're are just fucking babbling non stop. "Some people... while others... on one hand... but on the other. Do I have any fucking conclusion at the end? Hell, no. Should I then shut up so that others wouldn't waste their bandwidth? Hell yeah!"

And I have read your stuff carefully, for which I'm deeply sorry.

P.S. Making false claims doesn't help you either.

[Edited on November 3, 2005 at 11:39 PM. Reason : .]

11/3/2005 11:38:07 PM

thank you so much for actually addressing what I said. it really sounds good!

11/3/2005 11:40:21 PM

There's nothing to address.

Well, ok. You essentially made a statement that given equal material status, the probability of being admitted to college for a white and a black is the same. That's false. Research says otherwise. You're either a liar, or you display wishful thinking. Any conclusions that you made from that false premise have zero value and need not be commented on.

11/3/2005 11:43:59 PM

that is what we call a "strawman." I did NOT say that given "equal material status" that a black has the same probability of being accepted to college. Instead, I said that one cannot devise an equation which predicts college acceptance based on race alone. I said that the best factor to do so would be material status. Then, I accepted that the demographics of material status are skewed such that blacks are generally at the lower end of the range while whites are generally at the higher end. However, the skewing itself is, still, not related to race itself.

11/4/2005 12:11:51 AM

I admit that I just skimmed the post but I found these two beauties:

Quote :

"Culture... Come on. There is no such thing as "black culture" in the US. The term is little more than a way for blacks who are high and mighty about being black to appear not to be high and mighty about being black."

wow. retarded. do you know what the word culture means?

Quote :

"The differences that we see in preferences for music and religion and grammatical ability (or lack thereof) are mainly the result of wealth and societal expectations, neither of which is a function of race."

no, but it is a function of culture which wealth plays a role in creating (my culture is very different from those who have a summer home in Martha's Vineyard). I can assure you that African American Vernacular English is a very real dialect that has grammatical rules. Part of the reason we need things like quotas is because people like you go around thinking that because someone has a different cultural background and speaks a different variety of english than you that they have inferior grammatical ability. It's the same reason state schools should have regional quotas within the state as well.

(although I admit that quotas based on race aren't perfect, class or wealth might be a better way of doing it)

[Edited on November 4, 2005 at 12:16 AM. Reason : ()]

11/4/2005 12:13:27 AM

Affirmative Action is all bullshit anyway. The best, and brightest should get in if they are white, black, or purple.

11/4/2005 12:14:02 AM

Quote :

"wow. retarded. do you know what the word culture means?"

yep. and I explained why blacks in the US do not have a culture. Just because you don't agree with me doesn't make me wrong...

Quote :

"no, but it is a function of culture which wealth plays a role in creating"

maybe so, but still: Wealth. AKA, independent of race. I do not have a different "culture" than someone in Martha's Vineyard. I have a different "lifestyle." Lifestyle != culture. I have a different culture than someone who lives in vietnam. Again, look at what culture really is. Its not just lifestyle. Its a conglomeration of things, many of which are not exclusive to those with a darker complexion and which are actually independent of said complexion.

Quote :

"Part of the reason we need things like quotas is because people like you go around thinking that because someone has a different cultural background and speaks a different variety of english than you that they have inferior grammatical ability."

or maybe the reason I think that someone speaks incorrectly is because the actual rules of fucking grammar of the language they are BUTCHERING say they are speaking incorrectly. I don't need quotas to fix the problem. I need to show them a damn book of grammar to fix it. Ebonics is little more than apologists doing what they do best: making excuses. There may be a few elderly black people who speak what could be classified as a dialect of English. But, just because 100 people speak it and it is similar to a butchered version of another dialect that is spoken by uneducated people who simply don't follow the freaking grammatical rules of the dialect doesn't make the latter a true dialect.

Quote :

"although I admit that quotas based on race aren't perfect, class or wealth might be a better way of doing it"

and therein lies the problem. I disagree. The BEST way to fix the problem is to fix the problem, not the symptoms. Poor people aren't getting a good education in K-12 schools? Welp, fix whatever the problem is on the K-12 level, NOT the college level. Fixing K-12 will have more benefits for more people as well, since more people go to K-12 than go to college. By only focusing on college you are saying "fuck those people who don't even try to go to college but were fucked by K-12."

11/4/2005 12:34:01 AM

Quote :

"I do not have a different "culture" than someone in Martha's Vineyard. I have a different "lifestyle." Lifestyle != culture. I have a different culture than someone who lives in vietnam. Again, look at what culture really is."

you're confusing culture with nationality. You can say we have an "american culture" but within that culture there are subsets of cultures. We're not all the same. There are some very significant differences and for some retarded reason the color of your skin can have a pretty big impact on which of those subset cultures you will fit into more easily.

Quote :

" or maybe the reason I think that someone speaks incorrectly is because the actual rules of fucking grammar of the language they are BUTCHERING say they are speaking incorrectly. I don't need quotas to fix the problem. I need to show them a damn book of grammar to fix it. Ebonics is little more than apologists doing what they do best: making excuses. There may be a few elderly black people who speak what could be classified as a dialect of English."

ignorance. Please learn about:
A) dialects
B) the grammars thereof

then come back and rejoin the discussion.

As you have so adequately and unintentionally demonstrated, the problem is in what sorts of things we use to judge someone's potential as a good college student. If someone grows up speaking a dialect of english that is non-standard, then testing them (as in the SAT) for their proficiency with standard english doesn't do what we mean for it to do (which is test their verbal reasoning abilities). Someone who speaks AAVE is no less proficient with language than someone who speaks standard english. You acquire the language you are exposed to, it has nothing to do with having access to a prescriptive grammar book. The best way to solve this would be to give them fair tests. Falling short of that, we should make allowances for factors like this in the acceptance process.


[Edited on November 4, 2005 at 1:46 AM. Reason : .]

11/4/2005 1:28:38 AM

Quote :

"you're confusing culture with nationality"

actually, no I'm not. But thx for the strawman. There is nothing distinctly unique about the color of a man's skin that determines his "culture." Sorry. It doesn't choose for you which culture you belong to. You are again confusing causality and correlation.

Quote :

"ignorance. Please learn about: A) dialects B) the grammars thereof"

you. please do the same. see how easy that works?

Quote :

"If someone grows up speaking a dialect of english that is non-standard, then testing them (as in the SAT) for their proficiency with standard english doesn't do what we mean for it to do"

thats all fine and dandy, except WE FUCKING TEACH THEM the dialect FOR 13 GOD DAMNED YEARS IN SCHOOL. I see NOTHING wrong with seeing how well someone has picked up something that has been hurled at them for 13 fucking years. I wouldn't subject the 90-year old woman who was subjected to discrimination all of her learning life and who wound up speaking pidgeon english before it to the testing of the SAT, but a student who was fucking told "HERE IS THE LANGUAGE THAT YOU WILL BE GRADED ON. LEARN IT OR ELSE YOU WILL FAIL THE TESTS..." He has no excuse NOT to learn the language.

11/4/2005 9:35:49 AM

Quote :

" actually, we haven't agreed on that. if anything, I have established that a "threshold" is equivalent to a quota."

you said :

Quote :

"i guess it all depends. do they actually mandate that they meet the threshold? if so, its a quota. otherwise, its a goal, which would be quite different."

sounds like you agreed with what i just said; depends how they are doing the admission equation.

Quote :

" only, its not valid. You haven't supported the point yet."

i said in general that they arent mutually exclusive, NOT in my example. i then said i had mistated what i was trying to get at in my original post and tried to explain my point in a different way, free from the correlation. correlations based solely on skin factor and another variable would be bullshit as you have said. being "black," i went on to say, isnt just about being dark. you disagree with me, thats fine, cant do much about that.

here's a correlation to show that they arent mutually exclusive if you want to argue more about it. having an fatal diseases with no cure or treatment has a negative correlation with longevity of life. obviously it doesnt say shit, but its pretty fair to say that people who have shit like ebola or rare forms of meningitis die young because of said diseases that kill you in a matter of days/weeks.

Quote :

" Only, its not a strawman. The pirate argument uses the definition of correlation to address your unstated assertion that the correlation between being black and being poor is more than just a correlation. In some respects, it is my attempt to say "back up your assertion with facts." You can prove the pirate analogy to be a strawman if you back up your assertion with facts."

beyond what i said in the last paragraph, it is a strawman about mutual exclusivity. since we were on different pages, however, it seems it was probably on purpose. i was just attributing "blackness" to something more than skin color. as far as facts are concerned, neither of us has really proven one way or the other that assertion.

Quote :

" This may be true, but guess what? The law effectively asserts that "being black" means "having a darker skin tone." It is de facto. Thus, for the purpose of this argument, being black means the same, because by the law's definition of "black," almost all people who have dark skin (excluding asians and middle easterners and hispanics, who don't necessarily have "dark skin," but have skin which is "darker" than a caucasian's) are "black" and almost all people who don't aren't."

this gets down to where you and i disagree. you want 0 inclusion of race in the equation. i think, due to a variety of other factors, that it isnt unfair to factor it into the equation as long as it isnt a quota or the like. the "law" also appears to say that right now, as long as their is no quota, it is fair to look at race in admissions.

Quote :

" I'm not entirely sure. I don't have statistics to really prove it one way or the other. Thus, I will instead abide by the assumption on which civil rights' laws were based: that all else being equal, race determines nothing except the color of a man's skin."

this assumes all the other criteria we talked about are completely false (as you've asserted).

Quote :

" Societal expectations are not a function of race. Even though we choose to naturally segregate ourselves (thus creating separate societies), that doesn't make any action which is the result of segregated societal influences actually the result of race, itself. If societal expectations are to blame for "discrimination," then the proper course of action is to change those societal expectations."

thats a pretty hefty feat. why not start by helping them to get into college so theres more emphasis in the black community on higher education (from everyone's viewpoint)? again that could go for all poor people as well, but you're against that too. the argument still assumes that we aren't taking tons of smart/white/rich kids because their poor or black brothers are filling all the slots. ultraqualified candidates arent going to be turned down in mass because of these practices.

Quote :

" As for role models, am I to assume that blacks can only have blacks as role models and whites only whites and that such a "rule" is mandated by race alone? Nope. Its a societal expectation."

i beleive its a natural tendency. little boys dont have to look up to dad, mom is a good role model... would it be fair to say that most boys choose their own gender as their role model?

Quote :

" The "historical nature of their situation" is really only applicable within the first twenty years or so of the change in the situation. It is basically a buffer zone between the old and the new. After the buffer, things should be radically different, and we should expect that the effects of the changes would be fully felt. <!--I define the "change of the situation" to have occurred around 1970 at the latest. Thus, by 1990, we should expect almost all of the immediate (read: legal and non-emotional based) effects of the "situation" to have dissipated. What does this mean? This means that after around 20 years, the time it takes for a group of people to grow up under the new order, things should be different enough to actually make a measurement of the change meaningful and accurate. The simple fact is, there were qualified blacks in 1970 to get job positions that were once denied them. There were qualified blacks for just about every position of anything (college acceptance, jobs, anything you can think of) in 1970. They were just denied the opportunity before 1970. Thus, after 1970, some blacks gained "entrance" and began to affect change. It may have started as a trickle, but slowly the kinks in the system were ironed out to effectively eliminate blatant discrimination. And I believe all of those kinks have been worked out, as have the kinks involved w/ more subtle discrimination as well. Thus, from 1990 on, everyone pretty much had the same playing field and we should have seen things start to level out, all things being equal.--> Thus, the only real vestige of the "historical situation" would be the emotional scars of those who were old enough to remember what went on. But, those "scars" are emotional, and do not have a tremendous direct effect on how the system works today. They are personal and internal, rather than institutional. Those scars had a much bigger effect during the buffer period, and thats why I give you a buffer period."

key words being should. theres plenty of studies (or even anecdotal if you like heh) evidence of descrimination still in place today. mathfreak touched on that a little.

Quote :

" Culture... Come on. There is no such thing as "black culture" in the US. The term is little more than a way for blacks who are high and mighty about being black to appear not to be high and mighty about being black. Are you or your parents truly from somewhere uniquely different than the US but you now live in the US? If so, then you've got a different culture, and a legitimate one at that. Otherwise, your culture is "American." The differences that we see in preferences for music and religion and grammatical ability (or lack thereof) are mainly the result of wealth and societal expectations, neither of which is a function of race. The only thing that might be more related to race is religious preference, as blacks in the US are overwhelmingly likely to be Christian. This is the product of slavery, where religion was sought as a refuge. It is, effectively, an emotional safety net, but people don't like to see religion that way. Thus, when slavery ended, the attraction to Christianity stayed for the former slaves, especially since they really knew of very little else, save for the few oral traditions which survived and were not stamped out by the slave-holders."

i agree with jugband on this. you admit we have subsocieties, but deny them culture. i dont see how that works.



note: i do agree, changing or better funding public schools would be another way to help people and should be done.

[Edited on November 4, 2005 at 10:15 AM. Reason : .]

11/4/2005 10:13:41 AM

For the record, I'm fully capable of elaborating on dialects and grammar for you, but this isn't a thread about dispelling common language myths. If you want to start one I'll post in it though.

Quote :

"There is nothing distinctly unique about the color of a man's skin that determines his "culture." Sorry. It doesn't choose for you which culture you belong to."

the color of your skin can have a significant impact on what culture you're a part of. Note that I never said anything about skin color causing you to have a certain culture. I said that it affects it, just like the class you're born into or the region of the US you're born into affects it. I'm not sure what it is about the phrase "can have a pretty big impact" that made you think I was saying it was the cause.

Quote :

"but a student who was fucking told "HERE IS THE LANGUAGE THAT YOU WILL BE GRADED ON. LEARN IT OR ELSE YOU WILL FAIL THE TESTS..." He has no excuse NOT to learn the language."

But you do understand that the person who grows up in a community that speaks a dialect close to the prescriptive standard has a much easier time doing this than someone who doesn't right? It doesn't mean their more intelligent, but they'll score higher on tests that are skewed towards their dialect. That's my point, quotas are useful for counteracting things like this. If you want me to educate you further on language variation then start a new thread about it.

11/4/2005 1:05:31 PM

Quote :

"The Center for Equal Opportunity, devoted to "colorblind" admissions policies for universities, recently released a report accusing N.C. State of weighing race too heavily in its admissions policy. Translation: There are too many black and Latino students on campus."

That's a terrible translation. This is a criticism of the process, not the outcome.

11/4/2005 5:13:02 PM

^ I was wondering when someone would point that out.

11/4/2005 6:04:27 PM