A Supreme Court Ruling That Warms My Little Racist Heart

[iron81]

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How does putting people into an environment that they are not prepared for help them? I'm talking about the individual people here.

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"C's get degrees."

[John Kilduff]

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The argument, for college admissions, went something like this: Blacks are X% of the population; yet they're only X-Y% of college admissions. They're scoring worse on entrance tests. They're not genetically inferior intellectually. Therefore the reason why they're scoring worse, and therefore being admitted less, is that they're not prepared as well in their pre-college education, for a variety of reasons, the most important one being the general circumstances of racism and the legacy of racism. That is, the fact that they didn't do as well on tests and were underrepresented in college was de facto evidence of discrimination.

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Of course, that's the argument they put forth. But to succeed as an argument it relies upon a premise that must be accepted axiomatically, and it also neglects to consider that there might exist significant, perhaps even unknown, reasons other than the effects of: 1) discriminatory racism, and 2) genetic intelligence, which could have an effect in producing comparative results. It also asserts that the most important facor is the effects of racism or racist policy.

It is an intuitive argument, but it is not an airtight or well-supported argument. All of the premises it relies upon are questioned by many it seeks to convince. Finally, it finishes on a circular note: that weaker test scores are de facto evidence of the effects of discrimination, since discrimination produces weaker test scores.

I don't blame those who were unconvinced at the outset for remaing unconvinced, because it is not a convincing argument unless one refuses to question several premises. Please note that I do think the efects of discrimination have played a causal role in producing weaker test scores but that is a far cry from making the argument a convincing argument. And to those who do question the argument's underlying premises, it is not much of an argument at all but rather it is more like a collection of assertions.

[John Kilduff]

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There's another way to look at it. Proponents of affirmative action would argue that if there is a situation where blacks are underrepresented in a certain population---say, admissions to a university--then discrimination must be at work to some degree.

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This assumes that black intelligence, motivation, personality traits, etc are entirely equivalent to white/asian at a genetic level. I see a lot of evidence that this isn't the case, and little evidence that it is. For example, Asians appear to have superior spatial intelligence to whites. Either way, it's far from a settled question, and until it is the whole premise on which your argument rests is entirely flawed.

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This is in keeping with the points I was trying to make. The whole argument rests on premises which themselves are mere assertions. The fact that some of the argument is undoubtedly true (that effects of discrimination have had some negative impact on test scores) misleads intuitively also, because without more incisive analysis it makes the whole argument appear to be true. That is fuzzy thinking. Some truths in an argument don't make all the premises the argument rests upon true, nor all the claims and conclusions of the argument true.

edit: I personally think it's obvious that effects of discrimination have caused negative impact on test scores, but I think that because it's obvious to me, not because the argument cited is truly convincing. The argument could actually be wrong on all points except that effects of discrimination have had some negative impact on test scores. How can we know which of the premises are true? At this point we pretty much can't, nor can we know if other unseen confounding factors might be at work.

[natedogg]

This is yet another instance that only serves to illuminate the travesty that is the public school system and indeed the very philosophy of having a public school system at all.

Hopefully people will begin to see how ridiculous it is to have public schools in the first place, and putting your children under the care of a monolithic, centrally controlled indoctrination system run by the state is perhaps a mistake ...

natedogg

[bills217]

Did anyone even look at the details of this case?

The Louisville family wanted their son to attend a nearby school (seems reasonable enough, right?) so that the mother could drop him off on her way to work. The school was not overcrowded; there were empty desks. The only issue was that admitting him would have screwed up the racial quota. That's it. So instead he had to endure a 90-minute bus ride to another school.

So, yeah - Supreme Court majority clearly racist, QED.

Do you lefties really have THAT much white guilt that you can't see the absurdity of the above situation? (And the similar absurdities caused by all affirmative action systems that make determinations based solely on race?)

[pokerbobo]

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Did anyone even look at the details of this case?

The Louisville family wanted their son to attend a nearby school (seems reasonable enough, right?) so that the mother could drop him off on her way to work. The school was not overcrowded; there were empty desks. The only issue was that admitting him would have screwed up the racial quota. That's it. So instead he had to endure a 90-minute bus ride to another school.

So, yeah - Supreme Court majority clearly racist, QED.

Do you lefties really have THAT much white guilt that you can't see the absurdity of the above situation? (And the similar absurdities caused by all affirmative action systems that make determinations based solely on race?)

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Correct...she did not want this to even go to court, let alone the supreme court. She just wanted a little common sense, and for her kids to go to school at least relativly close to home. What a inappropriate request to the liberals.

[djoyce003]

Affirmative action is complete [censored]. It doesn't do anyone any favors. It gives a minority a leg up that they don't deserve based on their actual performance. For instance, a kid that has horrible SAT scores still gets into college because he's a minority. Meanwhile, a white child with much higher scores doesn't get in to make room for the person that didn't "earn" their entrance. That kid then fails out because he didn't have the brains necessary to pass, etc.

It creates bad feelings all the way around. At my current job (i work for a very large company) minorities are ROUTINELY promoted that are much less deserving than their counterparts for the sole reason that they are a minority. These are college educated individuals that are clearly under-achieving compared to white coworkers, yet they get promoted. Why is this? They are college educated. How long must they get a leg-up on the rest of the workforce simply because of race? It is completely rediculous.

Lets do an experiment. You run a company that promotes based on race rather than performance. I will compete directly with you with a company that promotes solely on performance. My company won't care what your race is. If we are all white, so be it, if we are mixed, so be it. Which company do you think will be more successful. My guess is that mine would be 100% of the time, call me crazy for thinking the most qualified, successful workers would create the best company.

FWIW in my current job we have just promoted an obviously unqualified person to a position because of race. This person is quite likely going to fail. Does that help him? No. Does it help us? No. In the meantime, the entire office staff is pissed about the situation and we are quite likely going to lose some good workers due to their disgust over the situation. Tell me, what good has come of this situation?

[Taraz]

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Affirmative action is complete [censored]. It doesn't do anyone any favors. It gives a minority a leg up that they don't deserve based on their actual performance. For instance, a kid that has horrible SAT scores still gets into college because he's a minority.

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I don't really want to spur on an affirmative action debate, but this statement just isn't factual. The minority candidate that gets accepted in favor of a white kid almost never has "horrible" SAT scores. Usually his score is maybe a couple percentile points less, so let's not act like it's some retard who's getting the spot.

Some would also say that having diversity in a place of learning fosters more learning. You often learn more when you are surrounded by a variety of viewpoints. None of this has anything to do with affirmative action in the workplace however.

[HeavilyArmed]

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EX: You and I are both exsubmariners. I'm sure there was at least one fellow submariner on one of your boats that pissed you right off almost like it was his job. Now on the boat, you'd give him little of your time/effort (aside from what was dutily RQD). Now lets say you pulled into a Liberty Port. Lets say, you happened across him in the "bar section" getting his arse kicked by 5 foreign dudes. Despite your personal distaste for him onboard, my bet is you, and your mates, would jump into the fray to save a shipmate.

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Just like all the black LA truck drivers and other solid citizens stepped in to save Reginald Denny?

[HeavilyArmed]

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The argument, for college admissions, went something like this: Blacks are X% of the population; yet they're only X-Y% of college admissions. They're scoring worse on entrance tests. They're not genetically inferior intellectually. Therefore the reason why they're scoring worse, and therefore being admitted less, is that they're not prepared as well in their pre-college education, for a variety of reasons, the most important one being the general circumstances of racism and the legacy of racism. That is, the fact that they didn't do as well on tests and were underrepresented in college was de facto evidence of discrimination.

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When this accepted truth is questioned so very much of the AA issue falls away as wasteful and futile.

I'm still looking for guaranteed proportional representation for whites in the NBA or the NFL, since we're all exactly the same. But coaching spots, that's where AA is needed. I get it.