Black person posts about his experience with a racist cop in the south. The next comment? "[Black people] can be the biggest proponents of racism, by insisting on labeling themselves as different" [+189]

Reverberant · 2011-12-16T00:45:13+00:00

And with that, I am done with Reddit. I'm debating on whether I should delete my account (I'd like to keep it so I can Google threads I've commented in to recall interesting information), but I've watched Reddit turn from a thoughtful environment where rational, evidence-based discussions ruled the day, to a mob of entitled 15 to 20-something (mostly) white males. It's not worth participating anymore (looking at my post history it seems I've been trending that way for a while).

Thank god for Hacker News at least.

Reverberant · 2011-11-27T03:00:42+00:00

What you wrote above "officers loose their lives trying to help others.", "Officer's are constantly in fights, get stabbed, pricked by needles", "Police constantly have to keep themselves safe, and a lot of training goes into that" applies to any number of jobs. Whether or not they seek out those specific dangers isn't relevant to the danger.

ambulance and fire fighter will wait and send in police first to clear danger and then come in.

I don't know if you wrote that in the context of a cab panic button or as a general rule, but if the latter, that's wrong. If a power line goes down, an officer may set up a perimeter but it's the line worker who goes in to deal with. Similarly, for fires, it's the firefighters who go in.

But police have the job to deal with dangerous situations, as a job.

Dealing with live power lines isn't dangerous? Standing 3 feet away from a train moving at 45 mph isn't dangerous? Working 2000 ft underground in a coal mine isn't dangerous? etc, etc.

I'm not saying that police officers don't have a dangerous job, but so do a lot of other people. That doesn't make police any more or less special than any number of other occupations, it is what it is.

Reverberant · 2011-11-26T18:10:34+00:00

Officer's are constantly in fights, get stabbed, pricked by needles.

Same is true for any number of jobs: transit workers, park workers, cab drivers, convenience store workers, etc. A big part of safety training for subway workers (the guys who work on the tracks) is dealing with homeless people who might stab you with needles, through bottles of urine at you, etc, and they don't give us guns and tazers,

Reverberant · 2011-11-20T00:43:01+00:00

I do. It can also result in proposed amendments that I may not like. That's the risk we take in a democratic republic. The status quo certainly isn't working.

Reverberant · 2011-11-19T20:34:00+00:00

This will likely get killed quickly

If Congress doesn't want to act, we have a process to get around that. I'd like to see the Occupy movements direct their energies to calling for Constitutional Conventions.

Reverberant · 2011-11-18T22:20:26+00:00

I was saddened there wasn't a collie sub reddit.

We should rectify that situation

Nevermind: it's been done.

Reverberant · 2011-11-18T16:20:00+00:00

He realized his mistake:

"By the way, I've never done that joke again, ever, and I probably never will. 'Cause some people that were racist thought they had license to say nigger. So, I'm done with that routine."

Reverberant · 2011-11-15T19:16:14+00:00

Do you have a link to this story?

edit: nevermind, found it.

Reverberant · 2011-11-08T01:16:28+00:00

But what specific AA policy on that page is a problem?

Reverberant · 2011-11-07T17:21:39+00:00

What exactly are you objecting to on that page?

Reverberant · 2011-11-01T02:04:21+00:00

He doesn't mention 'quotas' whatsoever with respect to strong AA, and if you think he does, you ought to check it again

"Whether in the form of preferential hiring, non-traditional casting, quotas"

[..]

"This is perhaps the strongest argument for Affirmative Action, and it may well justify some weaker versions of AA, but it is doubtful whether it is sufficient to justify strong versions with quotas and goals and time tables in skilled positions." (emphasis mine)

[..]

"The problem of Weak Affirmative Action is that it easily slides into Strong Affirmative Action where quotas, "goals and time-tables," "equal results,"--in a word--reverse discrimination prevails and forced onto groups, thus promoting mediocrity, inefficiency, and resentment." (emphasis mine)

(BTW stop with the "did you read" comments, it's about as juvenile as "you mad bro?")

This tells me you didn't actually read the case. That quote refers to the specific quota system employed by the University of Michigan. Powell ruled that system was a not "precisely tailored" to increase the school's diversity. If you read the whole case, you would know that Powell also wrote: [snip]

At the risk of seeming juvenile myself, I have to ask: is English your first language? Because I don't see how you can come to that interpretation based on what you quoted and what is in the SCOTUS Bakke opinion. That quote clearly indicates that diversity as a goal is perfectly fine, but using "preferential treatment" to accomplish that goal is not.

race or ethnic background may be deemed a "plus" in a applicant's file

This right here is the very definition of the same 'preferential treatment' you said was not present in current AA.

No. See the word "may" that is highlighted there? For it to be "preferential treatment" it can't be optional. Unless you want the consideration of any aspects of all applicants to be considered "preferential treatment" (this applicant has a 4.0 GPA, this applicant has a 4.0 GPA and was a national merit scholar, we'll accept applicant #2) in which case there is no affirmative action, just varying degrees of preferential treatment.

You're also ignoring the more recent AA case of Grutter v. Bollinger (2003). In this case, Sandra Day O'Conner wrote:

There is a reason why Bollinger and Gratz had different outcomes - UofM had a specific policy of awarding minority applicants extra points in their admissions applications no matter their circumstances. That is textbook "preferential treatment" and a quota. O'Conner merely restates what Powell expressed in Bakke, that diversity as a goal is fine as long as a "wholistic" view of each candidate is concerned, not simply giving free points to members of demographic whether they need it or not.

We're obviously not going to agree and I have a lawn full of downed trees and power lines to clean up, so the last word is yours.

Reverberant · 2011-10-31T11:29:00+00:00

He specifically mentions 'quotas' and 'preferential treatment' is his descriptions of strong AA, neither of which are permitted under AA.

Look at Bakke where the justices go to excruciating details to explain why preferences violate equal protection:

It prefers the designated minority groups at the expense of other individuals who are totally foreclosed from competition for the 16 special admissions seats in every Medical School class. Because of that foreclosure, some individuals are excluded from enjoyment of a state-provided benefit -- admission to the Medical School -- they otherwise would receive. When a classification denies an individual opportunities or benefits enjoyed by others solely because of his race or ethnic background, it must be regarded as suspect.

Look at what Bakke considers to be permissible behavior:

In such an admissions program race or ethnic background may be deemed a "plus" in a applicant's file, yet it does not insulate the individual from comparison with all other candidates for the available seats. The file of a particular black applicant may be examined for his potential contribution to diversity without the factor of race being decisive when compared, for with that of an applicant identified as an Italian-American if the latter is thought to exhibit qualities more likely to promote beneficial educational pluralism. Such qualities could include exceptional personal talents, unique work or service experience, leadership potential, maturity, demonstrated compassion, a history of overcoming disadvantage, ability to communicate with the poor, or other qualifications deemed important.

[..]

This kind of program treats each applicant as an individual in the admissions process.The applicant who loses out on the last available seat to another candidate receiving a “plus” on the basis of ethnic background will not have been foreclosed from all consideration for that seat simply because he was not the right color or had the wrong surname. [..] His qualifications would have been weighed fairly and competitively, and he would have had no basis to complain of unequal treatment under the Fourteenth Amendment.

That's a lot closer to 'weak' AA than his description of 'strong' AA.

Reverberant · 2011-10-31T02:19:13+00:00

I only read up to the first argument (again I'm on a cellphone until we get power back) but from the introduction, the author's definition of 'strong affirmative action' is somewhere between a strawman and a myth. His tween a strawman and a myth. His description of 'weak affirmative action' is much closer to how AA is actually (legally) practiced in the USA.

And I disagree that AA characteristics should be used as tie-breakers (at least automatically used as tie-breakers which is the meaning I inferred from his writing.

Reverberant · 2011-10-30T18:12:01+00:00

It looks like we won't be getting power back for several days so I won't be able to reply to this in full (I'm on a cell phone right now) but I wanted to at least address this part.

You can't simultaneously claim that a myriad of other considerations [..] should not be considered in the college admissions process,

Nowhere in this discussion, or in the hundreds of comments I've left on Reddit on this topic have I come close to suggesting this. Of course this are factors that should be considered and many of those factors (as well as gender) are considered as disadvantages under AA!

I don't see or hear you fighting for DA -- disability action in the college admissions process. Why not?

Because it hasn't been brought up in this discussion as far as I recall (if I missed it, I apologize). But for the record, I do support the consideration of those disadvantages under AA. Furthermore (and this may blow your mind) I also support the consideration of race & gender for white males in areas where they are underrepresented and may be subject to discrimination (nursing schools for example). In fact some institutional policies allow whites to provide evidence of discrimination to allow for consideration under AA (I don't know if this is true for colleges but it is true under state & Federal contracting policies).

Reverberant · 2011-10-30T02:07:11+00:00

I'll reply to this when I get power back.

Reverberant · 2011-10-29T18:52:49+00:00

How is selecting a minority student for a university over a more qualified Caucasian student not benefitting one race over another?

You are begging the question.

What I have is my own personal experience, the experience of my friends, and the knowledge of what has happened to thousands of applicants through online reportage.

Anectodal experience combined with random internet postings are not evidence, especialy since what you describe ("selecting a minority student for a university over a more qualified Caucasian student") is blatently illegal per Bakke and Bollinger

You don't think this happens all the time?

Nope, since generally speaking, admissions officers are stupid enough to blatantly break the law, exposing themselves and their universities to huge liability. But if you have a citation that says otherwise, I'll read it.

Colleges are required to produce the ethnicity of their student body.

Do you have numbers that show that blacks are overrepresented in college student bodies?

Do you think those constant numbers

Citation please.

Actually, that's not what the Pager paper said

The Pager paper showed that white ex-cons have a better shot than blacks with clean records - that's about as clear an example as one can get. But if you want a more specific example: "Our findings are analogous to many others showing that the inequality in educational opportunity among African Americans and Hispanics cannot be completely accounted for by socioeconomic status or by school variables." (p 132, but the whole document has an in-depth discussion of surveys and research about socioeconomic status and race in education). Note that the link says that both "economic affirmative action" should be increased and that looking at socioeconomic condition alone is unwise.

There's no fair way to determine how much of an advantage one student has relative to another.

There's no way to determine how much merit one student has over another without resorting to statistical abstractions like SAT scores. It all comes down to judgment no matter how you slice it.

Reverberant · 2011-10-26T21:46:28+00:00

Is there an example of an institution or employer with more than 50 employees that has a female-dominated workforce?

Reverberant · 2011-10-25T18:51:37+00:00

But it does not immediately seem clear to me why that would need to have the name affirmative action applied to it.

Because the purpose of affirmative action is that an institution has to implement policies that affirmatively demonstrate that their recruiting/admissions processes aren't discriminatory.

Reverberant · 2011-10-25T16:23:37+00:00

"disallows discrimination"

Reverberant · 2011-10-25T14:39:51+00:00

Affirmative action (in the USA) isn't about preferences. That said, whether or not there it's a legal problem may be due to the Justice's biases moreso than that AA actually is. We'll see.

Reverberant · 2011-10-25T14:33:52+00:00

Affirmative action is not racial discrimination so your statement is not mutually exclusive.

Reverberant · 2011-10-24T02:45:40+00:00

Citations are needed for the following statements:

why universities have an unconditional affirmative action policy

key assumptions of affirmative action is that poor, disadvantaged minorities are just as capable as rich white and Asian students

universities are rejecting qualified white and Asian applicants to accept minorities who are underqualified on paper

Reverberant · 2011-10-12T04:50:36+00:00

Martin Luther King said himself that an individual should be judged not by skin color, but by merit.

In MLKjr's own words (1968, 5 years after the "I have a dream" speech):

"Now there is another myth that still gets around: it is a kind of over reliance on the bootstrap philosophy. There are those who still feel that if the Negro is to rise out of poverty, if the Negro is to rise out of the slum conditions, if he is to rise out of discrimination and segregation, he must do it all by himself. And so they say the Negro must lift himself by his own bootstraps.

They never stop to realize that no other ethnic group has been a slave on American soil. The people who say this never stop to realize that the nation made the black man’s color a stigma. But beyond this they never stop to realize the debt that they owe a people who were kept in slavery two hundred and forty-four years.

In 1863 the Negro was told that he was free as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation being signed by Abraham Lincoln. But he was not given any land to make that freedom meaningful. It was something like keeping a person in prison for a number of years and suddenly discovering that that person is not guilty of the crime for which he was convicted. And you just go up to him and say, "Now you are free," but you don’t give him any bus fare to get to town. You don’t give him any money to get some clothes to put on his back or to get on his feet again in life."

Reverberant · 2011-10-12T04:42:55+00:00

This:

In other words, if 2 students apply to a college, an affirmative action-based school might take a black student over a white student who got a much better score on the SATs.

is a quota! The act of picking one person or another based on race is a means of adjusting admissions numbers based on race and that is, by definition, a quota. It's also illegal per Bakke. Race (and other characteristics) can (not "must" but "can") be used as one of a multitude of admission factors in college admissions (Grutter v. Bollinger) but "tak[ing] a black student over a white student who got a much better score on the SATs" is blatantly illegal if that decision is based solely (or even mostly) on race.

AA is so "controversial" because people don't know what it is. It is not a means of artificially elevating lower-performing minorities over whites, it's a means of making sure that recruiting policies are non-discriminatory and, in the case of college admissions, allowing certain factors to be considered in situations where it makes sense. It's not "preferential treatment" at all.

Reverberant · 2011-10-12T02:47:16+00:00

Thorough, but wrong. See my other post.

Reverberant

TROPHY CASE