The US Supreme Court has just abolished Affirmative Action in regards to college/university admissions. Do you believe this is right or wrong?

[Xzi]

I guess I just have to return to the facts. You can't have generational wealth with one-parent homes.

You can't have generational black wealth in a two-party system wherein one party is fully racist and the other at least 25%. Whole lot of people that don't want the Tulsa massacre mentioned in schools, and it's to keep kids ignorant, not "protect" them.

What's your solution?

Full reparations in a lump sum, paid out of corporate welfare and/or the bloated military budget. If 5% of the latter can nearly topple Putin, surely another 5% can make black families whole again. At that point I'd be fully in favor of eliminating the half-assed solution that is affirmative action, in all its forms including the legacy program.

Naturally, Congress and SCOTUS should also be working to make education more affordable for everybody. Instead, SCOTUS targeted student loan forgiveness in their partisan ruling today. The corruption and hypocrisy is staggering, but unfortunately not surprising.

 

[WalterSlovotsky]

You can't have generational black wealth in a two-party system wherein one party is fully racist and the other at least 25%. Whole lot of people that don't want the Tulsa massacre mentioned in schools, and it's to keep kids ignorant, not "protect" them.


Full reparations in a lump sum, paid out of corporate welfare and/or the bloated military budget. If 5% of the latter can nearly topple Putin, surely another 5% can make black families whole again. At that point I'd be fully in favor of eliminating the half-assed solution that is affirmative action, in all its forms including the legacy program.

Naturally, Congress and SCOTUS should also be working to make education more affordable for everybody. Instead, SCOTUS also targeted student loan forgiveness in their partisan ruling today. The corruption and hypocrisy is staggering, but unfortunately not surprising.

Reparations.

Okay.

My grandmother is a WWII refugee. My grandfather who is mostly Irish met her while he was stationed in Poland. They married and moved back here after the war. There is absolutely no lineage of slave-ownership in my bloodline of people already disadvantaged through poverty or war. Absolutely zero inherited wealth.

I own nothing from either of them. Neither did my parents. So, what part of reparations to descendants of African slaves do I personally owe?

Answer this directly. Tell me how my family benefited from slave ownership, and what dues I owe to anyone alive today.

 

[lolcatzuru]

This is great, news, AA was a horribly racist thing and im glad we can finally appreciate people for who they are.

 

[Xzi]

My grandmother is a WWII refugee. My grandfather who is mostly Irish met her while he was stationed in Poland. They married and moved back here after the war. There is absolutely no lineage of slave-ownership in my bloodline of people already disadvantaged through poverty or war. Absolutely zero inherited wealth.

I own nothing from either of them. Neither did my parents. So, what part of reparations to descendants of African slaves do I personally owe?

None. I very clearly stated it would come out of corporate welfare and the bloated military budget. You just want to be oppressed so badly, don't you? It's not as glamorous as you're building it up to be in your head.

 

[WalterSlovotsky]

None. I very clearly stated it would come out of corporate welfare and the bloated military budget. You just want to be oppressed so badly, don't you? It's not as glamorous as you're building it up to be in your head.

Where. Does. The. Military. Budget. Come. From?

A/ The American Taxpayer
B/ The American Taxpayer
C/ The American Taxpayer



Trust me, my friend. Victimhood has never been something I respected. I was raised to be a man who can stand on my own two feet, take care of myself, and THEN some. I can carry you, too, if I need to. And I will, without complaint. That's what the spirit of America is. To be strong enough to handle our burdens and yours, too, if I have to.

Doesn't mean I don't want you to eventually get the fuck up and stand on your own two, strong, working feet as well, without bitching and crying about being disadvantaged when I set you down and ask YOU to walk the same walk I have. With the same exact shoes, on the same exact road, on a totally level playing field.

You're trying to pretend that I am setting you down on broken glass, barefoot, and expecting you to run a mile, while I have combat boots on, and someone else to carry my pack. You might have an argument if that were true, but it absolutely isn't.

I think you are crying harder over whip scars that you never had, than the people who actually suffered. I don't know what good that does for you, but I hope you get better.

 

[Xzi]

Where. Does. The. Military. Budget. Come. From?

A/ The American Taxpayer
B/ The American Taxpayer
C/ The American Taxpayer

By that logic, black Americans would be paying almost as much into their own reparations as white Americans, so who cares? Moreover, better that segment of the budget goes to something positive, rather than Stormtroopers in Israel, for example.

That's what the spirit of America is. To be strong enough to handle our burdens and yours, too, if I have to.

Funny how that slowly shifted away from you arguing for an even playing field being inherent to the "spirit of America."

 

[WalterSlovotsky]

By that logic, black Americans would be paying almost as much into their own reparations as white Americans, so who cares? Moreover, better that segment of the budget goes to something positive, rather than Stormtroopers in Israel, for example.


Funny how that slowly shifted away from you arguing for an even playing field being inherent to the "spirit of America."

No. They couldn't. 13.6% of the population isn't paying as much tax as 75.5%. Especially with the fact that 37% of black Americans are on some form of government assistance or welfare, and are not paying any income tax whatsoever. Simple mathematics prove you wrong on this. Now, go ahead and call me a racist for citing easily verifiable facts that make YOU feel uncomfortable.

I can argue for a level playing field AND be proud to be an American at the same time. Not everyone is as monochromatic as you, sir. I am a kaleidoscope of my life experiences. I can see in shades of grey and in between. Not everything is 0 or 1. Not a fan of binary thinking.

 

[Foxi4]

A victim complex does not a victim make. Remarkable white students were not being denied admission with affirmative action in place, but remarkable students of other races and ethnicities were being denied admission before the policy. If there's any preference at all, it should be given to those serious about pursuing their education, rather than nepo babies who go to college exclusively to party for four to six years. The legacy program is affirmative action for people who objectively need it the least.


My brother in Kirby, If you told me it's illegal in Florida to teach kids that black people exist you know I'd have to take it at face value, at least initially. That's the reality of just how deeply unserious Republicans are when it comes to addressing race-based inequalities in education, past and present. This ruling is all about trying to re-establish old racial dividing lines because the oligarchy perceived we were becoming too united in the common goal of rooting out bribery and corruption, particularly within SCOTUS itself. Parasites never detach from their host easily though, and it's clear there's much work to be done yet.

I'm sure things will work themselves out again eventually, after hundreds of lawsuits from the ACLU and NAACP force them to. It shouldn't have to come to that, of course, and there will still be students who have to suffer the consequences in the meantime, but I suppose cruelty and pettiness are once again core to the politics at play here.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one, the statistics don’t seem to align with your point of view. Students For Fair Admissions have conducted some research on this matter and, in the case of Harvard, an Asian student in the highest, 10th academic decile had equal chances of being accepted as a black student in the *4th* academic decile (the associated documents are in the 247-page SCOTUS write-up). That’s racism, plain and simple. This decision is a victory for racial equality, any regulation that is contingent on the colour of one’s skin is systemic racism by definition and must be eliminated.

https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-affirmative-action-case-showed-astonishing-racial-gaps/

It is *demonstrably true* that Asian and white students have suffered as a result of affirmative action, regardless of level of income.

 

[WalterSlovotsky]

We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one, the statistics don’t seem to align with your point of view. Students For Fair Admissions have conducted some research on this matter and, in the case of Harvard, an Asian student in the highest, 10th academic decile had equal chances of being accepted to a black student in the *4th* academic decile (the associated documents are in the 247-page SCOTUS write-up). That’s racism, plain and simple. This decision is a victory for racial equality, any regulation that is contingent on the colour of one’s skin is systemic racism by definition and must be eliminated.

https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-affirmative-action-case-showed-astonishing-racial-gaps/

I showed him that before. He utterly ignored it. Facts sometimes don't matter when all you can see is blue.

 

[Foxi4]

I showed him that before. He utterly ignored it. Facts sometimes don't matter when all you can see is blue.

I’ve had this disagreement with him before and understand his reasoning, though I find it convoluted. There’s a fair bit of cognitive dissonance in there, and I don’t think charts and numbers can change that. Ultimately, racism is still racism, even if you “like” the consequences of it. Now, I know a fair bit of American history and, to my knowledge, the Founding Fathers weren’t Asian. I also don’t think there were large droves of Asian plantation owners - if I remember correctly, Asians were too busy dying en masse building the railway system to discriminate against anyone in particular. As such, I find it bizarre that they’d be penalised solely because they score high on tests. University is the equivalent of intellectual olympics - it’s for the best and brightest, not for everyone. Maybe if you want to get admitted to Ivy League schools, you should just work harder. Nobody’s entitled to higher education in a prestigious private school - that’s something you earn through hard work, not by dint of birth. Anyone who believes this negatively affects African Americans *must* secretly believe that they’re stupid and require a lower standard to get in, which is all sorts of messed up.

 

[WalterSlovotsky]

I’ve had this disagreement with him before and understand his reasoning, though I find it convoluted. There’s a fair bit of cognitive dissonance in there, and I don’t think charts and numbers can change that. Ultimately, racism is still racism, even if you “like” the consequences of it. Now, I know a fair bit of American history and, to my knowledge, the Founding Fathers weren’t Asian. I also don’t think there were large droves of Asian plantation owners - if I remember correctly, Asians were too busy dying en masse building the railway system to discriminate against anyone in particular. As such, I find it bizarre that they’d be penalised solely because they score high on tests. University is the equivalent of intellectual olympics - it’s for the best and brightest, not for everyone. Maybe if you want to get admitted to Ivy League schools, you should just work harder. Nobody’s entitled to higher education in a prestigious private school - that’s something you earn through hard work, not by dint of birth. Anyone who believes this negatively affects African Americans *must* secretly believe that they’re stupid and require a lower standard to get in, which is all sorts of messed up.

Beyond that. We had Japanese internment camps. Chinese immigrants were treated the worst, out of Irish immigrants coming here from the Great Potato Famine (my great-great grandfather was one of them) and African freemen or escaped slaves. Asians have had a bitch of a time in America since its inception. And the old method of excluding them from higher learning because they were Asian was racism on high. Which is why it's wonderful that they will no longer be discriminated against.

 

[Xzi]

We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one, the statistics don’t seem to align with your point of view. Students For Fair Admissions have conducted some research on this matter and, in the case of Harvard, an Asian student in the highest, 10th academic decile had equal chances of being accepted to a black student in the *4th* academic decile (the associated documents are in the 247-page SCOTUS write-up). That’s racism, plain and simple. This decision is a victory for racial equality, any regulation that is contingent on the colour of one’s skin is systemic racism by definition and must be eliminated.

https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-affirmative-action-case-showed-astonishing-racial-gaps/

It is *demonstrably true* that Asian and white students have suffered as a result of affirmative action, regardless of level of income.

Alrighty then. I did say it was a half-assed solution, and while I still believe there are minority students who will end up suffering as a result of its repeal, that's not an excuse to condone suffering on the other side of the coin. It also further reinforces the argument that the legacy system should be abolished given its tendency to undercut traditionally-high standards for admission. The voice of money cannot be the loudest one in the room if the goal is to avoid discrimination.

 

[Foxi4]

Alrighty then. I did say it was a half-assed solution, and while I still believe there are minority students who will end up suffering as a result of its repeal, that's not an excuse to condone suffering on the other side of the coin. It also further reinforces the argument that the legacy system should be abolished given its tendency to undercut traditionally-high standards for admission. The voice of money cannot be the loudest one in the room if the goal is to avoid discrimination.

It’s private schools, if they want to have loyalty programs, there’s nothing you, me or anybody else can say about it. Now, if it were up to me, academic performance would be paramount and legacy would amount to a referral, but I don’t run an Ivy League school. If you want to implement that kind of change, maybe become a dean in an Ivy League school.

 

[supermist]

But, the same exact students would be under the same circumstances, if the school were underfunded. Which means every white, Asian, Indian or Hispanic student would literally be learning the same curriculum, under the same teachers, with the same potential opportunities.

In that actual, real scenario, why should the Asian kid get a disadvantage while the black kid gets a bonus? Same classes, same school, same everything. Why give one race an advantage over others, while giving another a penalty?

Personally, I find that HIGHLY racist as hell, to automatically assume that Asian kids would naturally (by virtue of ethnicity alone) do better on test scores, while black kids would need a boost.

Do you see the logic? It's like saying black kids are lesser, and need a helping hand, because they just can't do it on their own.

If I were black, I would be HIGHLY insulted and offended that someone just figured that my kid, in the same classes as everyone else, needed a modifier so they could succeed.

Do you get what I am saying? The racists are the ones who think black kids can't do it without a leg up on everyone else. THEY are the ones who think less of black people.

The issue statistically, is that areas with higher concentration of white families have better funded schools (and the reasons for that vary but are often due to the ripple effect that discrimination still has, generational poverty, etc) will often have the means to offer AP courses, and poor districts, often with heavy minority concentration do not have the funding to offer AP courses.

So in an instance where the minority students with the 4.0 gets picked over the white student with the 4.2, that's an instance where the inequality is being corrected. The student with the 4.2 is not going to have a hard time finding a place to get a good education.

 

[RationalityIsLost101]

It's of my opinion that affirmative action isn't a suitable solution. Quotas led to issues within my medical school for those who struggled to qualify scholastically to finish the program. They struggled, dropped out, and then spots were lost that couldn't be filled. College level is not the area where support needs to be given. It needs to be free and public childcare to ALL staffed by qualified teachers at the age of +18 months. Throwing money or lowering standards isn't the way to fix this. The most vulnerable ages are where we as a society drop the ball and that impacts the entire lifespan of the child. Raise taxes on the highest earners, top .1% to pay for it. Education, when done correctly, can be a silver bullet but it needs to start at the foundational levels. Making sure kids are well socialized, fed, educated despite their background or zipcode.

Do that and then worry about who has equal chances into an ivy league. Trust me community colleges and universities are not turning droves of qualified applicants away. And as far as professional schools go, you still have to pass the rigors of the program and licensing exams, you can't just lower the bar at every step. But you can ensure the new generations have the skills and resources to succeed. This isn't and shouldn't be a partisan issue, this affects us all in every community outside of the elite zipcodes.

 

[Xzi]

It’s private schools, if they want to have loyalty programs, there’s nothing you, me or anybody else can say about it.

Private colleges are trending toward becoming the majority in the US, if they aren't already, and we can't have the majority of colleges openly practicing discrimination. It's kind of implied at this point SCOTUS believes the only barrier to racism/bigotry should be the amount of money in your bank account, but if they truly want that to be law they'll have to state it publicly for all to hear. My bet's on there not being a single complete spine between all the Republicans on the court combined, so I'm not holding my breath.

 

[WalterSlovotsky]

So in an instance where the minority students with the 4.0 gets picked over the white student with the 4.2, that's an instance where the inequality is being corrected. The student with the 4.2 is not going to have a hard time finding a place to get a good education.

What you said is ABSOLUTELY RACIST, and this is why this racist ass law was abolished.

You are assuming that the white kid with a 4.2 got there because he is white, and not because of any other factor. Again, we're talking the same exact school, the same exact curriculum, the same exact teacher. One white kid with a 4.2, on free lunch because his parents are poor. One black kid with a 4.0, bringing his lunch from home every day.

The white kid gets a demerit for being white, and the black kid gets a bonus for being black. Same economic background. Same everything.

The 4.0 student does not DESERVE a bonus, just because the student with HIGHER MERIT has EARNED THAT HIGHER MERIT, and thus, deserves the fruits of his or her work. The 4.2 student will "not have a hard time finding a place to get a good education" because they EARNED it. The 4.0 student could have earned it, too, but didn't.

Equality of opportunity does not equate to equality of outcome. It's all about... say it with me... PERSONAL MERIT.

Make it make sense.

 

[Foxi4]

Private colleges are trending toward becoming the majority in the US, if they aren't already, and we can't have the majority of colleges openly practicing discrimination. It's kind of implied at this point SCOTUS believes the only barrier to racism/bigotry should be the amount of money in your bank account, but if they truly want that to be law they'll have to state it publicly for all to hear. My bet's on there not being a single complete spine between all the Republicans on the court combined, so I'm not holding my breath.

Is this the point where we pretend that all black people are poor and live in the hood? Your racism of low expectations is showing. None of what you’ve just said justifies discrimination based on race. Banks are perfectly happy to provide student loans since they’re almost universally backed by the federal government. Heck, those guys will give you a loan even if they know you won’t be able to pay it off, which is a whole ‘nother can of worms. As far as government solutions are concerned, I am ten times happier with any solution based in money as opposed to a solution rooted in unconstitutional discrimination based on race. What your schools have been doing for the last couple of decades is straight up illegal in many countries. I’m all for equal opportunity, but equal outcome is nothing more than a cudgel that beats down on innocent people who happen to be the wrong colour so that a number on a diversity quota page looks good. There is nothing fair about it.

 

[WalterSlovotsky]

Is this the point where we pretend that all black people are poor and live in the hood? Your racism of low expectations is showing. None of what you’ve just said justifies discrimination based on race. Banks are perfectly happy to provide student loans since they’re almost universally backed by the federal government. Heck, those guys will give you a loan even if they know you won’t be able to pay it off, which is a whole ‘nother can of worms. As far as government solutions are concerned, I am ten times happier with any solution based in money as opposed to a solution rooted in unconstitutional discrimination based on race. What your schools have been doing for the last couple of decades is straight up illegal in many countries. I’m all for equal opportunity, but equal outcome is nothing more than a cudgel that beats down on innocent people who happen to be the wrong colour so that a number on a diversity quota page looks good. There is nothing fair about it.

That is precisely what our esteemed colleague believes. He thinks less of black people than the evil wypipo he is propping up as Strawmen to support his argument.

He is being told that all people are equal, and everyone should receive what they have earned, and he still thinks less of black people than the folks he is accusing of harboring a resentment towards them.

White Saviors make my teeth itch.

 

[Xzi]

Is this the point where we pretend that all black people are poor and live in the hood?

Not at all, I didn't even refer specifically to black people in that post. Discrimination based on financial status is discrimination all the same, however, and it's exploited as a proxy for all other forms of prejudices. It also turns supposedly-prestigious institutions of higher education into a joke, as graduates come out the other side having learned only how to grift the American public.

everyone should receive what they have earned

Would be nice, but that's not how capitalism currently operates, or has ever operated. You can become president having never done a single honest day's work in your life.