Only some crazy fringe politician that no one ever listens to or pays attention would say something like that right? I guess only Pat Buchanan on MSNBC. See video below if you can stomach it.
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I hope that as we move to more diverse and left leaning people of color in positions of leadership that people of the "almost Pat" persuasion have more tools to see how ignorant this man is, instead of believing he is making legitimate arguments. What frustrates me is that he is speaking to a white anxiety and fear of affirmative action, that I have heard resonated before and specifically through policy that ends up hurting people of color because it is seen as a threat to the white nationalist order. I mean, many of the questions asked by Senators to Sotomayor during her hearing resonated this same ignorance, so it is not such a stretch that some Americans still have this fear of brown folks rising. Buchanan is endorsing white supremacy and racial hatred and the people that have always listened to him, probably have that same animosity within them. I guess these are the same people that voted for McCain, cuz there still were a bunch of them.
Maddow does a good job of keeping her cool, way better than I could have, but I am not totally clear why she has him on the show and maintains this "relationship" with him. She rails into him, but is it hard enough? Or should we just ignore him for the racist wing-nut that he is? Firedoglake thinks it is an explicit attempt on behalf of MSNBC to endorse racial hatred,
And whether you see him actually believing this dangerous nonsense or cynically stoking and exploiting the anger of others who do, there's no doubt he's exploiting his MSNBC perch to stir up racial hatred. He's said he means to do that.So why is MSNBC promoting this? Yes, promoting. They're not just occasionally interviewing their dear "Uncle Pat" to find out what whacko extremists are saying; they're actively promoting him, every day, and night after night. And this is the same MSNBC that was condemning Reverend Wright for weeks, showing endless loops of video clips and urging their hosts and guests to characterize Wright's views as unacceptably anti-white.
MSNBC knows that Buchanan has engaged in such racist speech throughout his career. The producers of MSNBC's political news/commentary shows must be convinced that they can attract more viewers and sell more advertising if they feature an unabashed white supremacist as their featured "conservative" panelist. They don't care that this must be deeply offensive to huge numbers of Americans; those viewers apparently don't matter. We don't matter.
And I think this is the reality. There are many Americans that don't support this kind of racial hate speech. And what about people of color that watch MSNBC? Do we get no viewing pleasure? Do they need ratings that bad?
I think a much better explanation for this fear of reverse racism via affirmative action is this cartoon from a while back via Amptooms.
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And here I shall quote Bikini Kill's "White Boy":
I'm so sorry if I'm alienating some of you
Your whole fucking culture alienates me
As for why would MSNBC promote Buchanan: controversy brings in more viewers.... and this is just an example. His ignorant, racist remarks are all over the news today. So naturally, next time Buchanan is a host on any of the shows on MSNBC, a lot of people are going to tune in and be eager for what next crazy thing he'll say. which means bigger ratings for MSNBC.
just my guess, though.
by the way, I like that cartoon, it demonstrates the so-called concept of "reverse racism" very well.
"...so it is not such a stretch that some Americans still have this fear of brown folks rising."
Not a stretch...I would agree considering every white person in my family and among my friends (who didn't attend my college) has this exact opinion on affirmitive action. I think I was able to change my mother's mind after a discussion, and my father is great until you talk about blue collar workers (it gets a little too personal for him at that point), but my sister, who went to a school more racially diverse than mine and had black friends, won't budge on this stance.
I was at a BBQ not two weeks ago when a girl going for her Masters and I got into an arguement over A.A. She said, I quote, "That's the reason I didn't get that internship I needed for school."
Blarg. I can't wait to go back to college.
I, too, feel like that opinion is common among those I grew up in. Although I can only recall hearing white men express that view.
I also think that, in my conversations on A.A., it is not a fear of "brown men rising" that stokes opposition. I find that it's not racism so much as an inherent lack of valuing cultural differences. (Hmm, don't know if that sentence made sense.) What I mean is that the white men I've sparred with on A.A. just cannot seem to appreciate that there is value to diversity because a particular racial, cultural, or gender experience has it's own value. To these men, race and gender is a non-issue because they've never experienced stereotyping or other attention based on their race or gender. So to them A.A. seems like purely discrimination.
As a white woman, I can see how that can develop because my own race never prominently figured into anything I did. (I spent most of my life in areas of the country that were predominently white.) But my gender did, so I feel I am at least slightly closer to seeing the benefits of diversity.
I still don't know if that made any sense. Basically I'm just saying that Pat Buchanan is probably speaking for a large part of society. (Even though I have not watched the clip yet.) I've certainly met my share of them.
You know, I used to buy into the reverse racism bullshit when I was a fledgling feminist. But after listening, and thinking, I changed my views.
People who are still decrying "reverse racism" are a) trying desperately to defend their own privilege and b) essentially sticking their fingers in their ears and going "nananana".
Fledgling period?
When was that, six months ago?
My how you have changed. ;)
Any time Pat Buchanan talks he makes himself the issue (by being an archaic and unrepentant white supremacist asshole). Every word he says is an attempt to use race as a divisive wedge issue, in the same way as Republican media and politicians' reaction to Sotomayor and Clinton's brief bout of "hard working white voters" white populism was in the primaries last year.
But is it not a fact that Affirmative Action "Increases Diversity by Discriminating Against White Men" and for that matter Asians in elite universities? It may be that this is a price that needs to be paid to promote diversity (a worthy and necessary objective) and to compensate for past and current injustices, but do we have to pretend that preferential treatment for someone doesn't impose a disadvantage on someone else? Maybe targeted groups should get help, but you can't blame other groups for being unhappy about it.
What frustrates me is that he is speaking to a white anxiety and fear of affirmative action, that I have heard resonated before and specifically through policy that ends up hurting people of color because it is seen as a threat to the white nationalist order.
Does it follow that white people (and Asians) who oppose affirmative action do so in defense of "the white nationalist order," rather than a desire for jobs and university placements they have a legitimate reason to believe they've earned?
The affirmative action debate we have in the US is simplistic at best. More often than not hiring and placement is a result of subjective criteria; after all its easy to weed out the unqualified. There are people who get into Harvard but not Princeton, and vice versa. How do you pick 1 person from among 5, all of whom have similar GPAs, test scores, and experience? It comes down to things like "work ethic", "fit", "communication", and "culture".
These are subjective criteria & in the case of fit & culture could easily lead a majority white firm to select a white male candidate more often than not (even though fit & culture are fair variables). All affirmative action seeks to do is to level the playing field.
Moreover the biggest affirmative action program of all is the "legacy" program of colleges which grant the children of alumnae easier admission. This is a "baked in" white privilege resulting from hundreds of years of discrimination.
I don't disagree with any of that. If it's meant as a rebuttal of my post, I honestly don't see the contradiction.
Well, good, I was trying to give a sensible response. I was reacting to this statement of yours: " Does it follow that white people (and Asians) who oppose affirmative action do so in defense of "the white nationalist order," rather than a desire for jobs and university placements they have a legitimate reason to believe they've earned? "
So if subjective variables are the rule, rather than the exception, then affirmative action is just one more such variable, which whites should be able to support (after all the whole "legacy" program of colleges works overwhelmingly in their favor).
So if subjective variables are the rule, rather than the exception, then affirmative action is just one more such variable, which whites should be able to support (after all the whole "legacy" program of colleges works overwhelmingly in their favor).
I agree, AA is just one more variable, though I don't see why that should obligate whites and Asians to feel great about it. I think legacy admissions should be banned, although this would cost schools a lot of money.
"(after all the whole "legacy" program of colleges works overwhelmingly in their favor)."
Most recipients of legacy admissions are undoubtedly white, but I doubt that the majority of whites benefit from them. What percentage of white college students go to the school their parents went to, if their parents went to college at all? (That's a rhetorical question, I don't know where we'd find that data.) I don't think the deck is stacked quite as in favor of Appalachian farm kids or first generation Asian immigrants as the general skin color statistics justifying AA imply. This whole conversation seems to be based on the idea of white men circa 1492-2009 as a monolithic bloc.
The first paragraph is cattrack2's, I copied it so I could respond more accurately then forgot to erase it before hitting send. Also.
Well, Aleks, as BO said poor kids from Appalachia would probably be better candidates for AA than Sasha & Malia. So there's broad agreement on the point that both racial & class discrimination should be taken into account.
As far as this view being based on some view of white men from 1950, don't be so dubious. I happen to be familiar with the data for how my own school applied the legacy system & it amounted to a quite heavy thumb on the scale. By the nature of the math these things persist long after discrimination formally ended and, in fact, is measured in generations (since the privilege passes generation to generation). Nor does it matter that legacy admits don't go to their parents' schools because even if they simply apply they "take" a spot from someone without that advantage...and God help us if they're the child of a "power couple", in which case they could even take 2 spots!
I don't understand what you're saying about legacy admissions, which might just mean I don't understand how legacy admissions work. Is it (the process not the ramifications) more complicated than the child of an alumnus getting easily accepted into his/her mother's/father's school?
Oh God, amen to the legacy bullshit. Can we outlaw nepotism in college admissions puh-leeze???
As a low-income, first-generation, white male college student, I definitely see a huge injustice in legacy admissions. It feels to me like a sort of grandfather clause for college admissions. While race- and income-based AA increase diversity at a school, legacy admissions seems to almost definitely decrease it.
That being said, I would support more of a focus on income-based affirmative action as well as race-based. Things like SAT tutors, private college counselors, tuition for private highs schools with great college acceptance rates, trips to faraway schools, etc. are just as hard to cover if you're a poor white American as a poor black American.
And those things have become standard fare for a lot of middle/upper-class suburban families with students preparing for college.
Don't get me wrong, I think our affirmative action programs need a lot of work, and A.A. of some sort based on socio-economic class would be a big part of that-- though I think a lot of colleges already cover that in how they award certain scholarships. The original point of A.A. though is not just to help individuals who are likely to be disadvantaged; it was (and should primarily remain) something that helps individuals who are likely to be disadvantaged *due to a long history of institutional oppression of people of their minority group*. Being poor is a very different kind of minority group, and oppression of the poor is quite different from the oppression of people based on immutable and physically inheritable characteristics like race or gender.
Gah, that should be 'race or sex.' Can't believe I made that mistake =/
Before commenting, I should say that I'm a big proponent of affirmative action programs.
That said, your description of how affirmative action programs work (by preferencing minorities among a large pool of similarly qualified candidates) is not always accurate. In many instances, in both university admissions and job hiring, affirmative action leads to the selection of candidates from disadvantaged groups who have lesser "objective" credentials (test scores, gpa, etc) than candidates from advantaged groups.
This, of course, raises the issue of the real lack of objectivity of those supposedly objective criteria. But it's often not true that affirmative action only preferences disadvantaged peoples when all else is equal.
I'm skeptical of this claim because its contrary to all other data I've ever seen. In the case of Harvard Business School for instance, blacks have a higher acceptance rate (%) than white candidates, but when the data are studied it shows that there's a higher amount of self selection as well. I've yet to see an actual AA program in place that admitted unqualified candidates. Geez, if it were just a matter of SATs & GPAs we could get a robot to do the job of all those admission staffers. But then we don't do that do we?
And, certainly to the extent you're correct, the Supreme Court in Grutter v. Bollinger eliminated quotas (again) and limited affirmative action to the type described.
If MSNBC keeps him around to make conservatives look like shit (not that Sessions/Kyl/Graham weren't helping them out, but who's watching C-SPAN at 11 am?), then job well done.
In any event, Rachel Maddow gets about 1 million viewers per night (she had more immediately pre-election). It sounds pretty good until you realize that the riveting new Two and a Half Men got about 10 times that amount. Even Bill O'Reilly at his most captivating (3 million viewers) gets half the business of Million Dollar Password. I guess the rules of M$P aren't too complicated for most people!
Damnnnn.
I got a Blu-Ray DVD player just so I could make the luxury purchase of all available Two and a Half Men season boxed sets, even the Japanese imports with the deleted scenes and Jon Cryer doing drunken commentary. I will throw a marathon three-day viewing party when they all arrive, and may God have mercy on our souls.
This comment has been deleteronated.
The cartoon is great, just not strictly applicable to all complaints about affirmative action. As for Buchanan's real world experience on racial issues: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2008/08/the-larger-half.html
troll
Miriam - You're a moron. The simple fact that somebody disagrees with you doesn't make them a troll.
Troll or not, Lewisranja, calling someone a moron is NEVER cool and does not promote intelligent, rational, or respectful discussion and disagreement.
Why is calling somebody a moron worse than calling somebody a troll? I agree that it does not contribute to respectful discussion, but there is nothing wrong with dismissing somebody from the discussion when they have nothing to contribute other than a silly word.
PLEASE. This person did not simply disagree with people here. He/she shows a blatant disregard of all pleas of racism, suggests the reality of the situation is that whites are discriminated against, and calls people here "bedroom bloggers" with little life experience.
Get some perspective here. There are trolls and this is clearly one of them. Intelligent disagreement is one thing, but a blatant opposition to some of the most basic values of the community you're posting in, followed by being incredibly rude and condescending? If ever there were troll, this is it.
If you have something real and significant to say then say it. But don't just disregard dissenting opinions with the childish cry of "troll".
I called you a troll because you obviously came to this comment section to say something insulting and get everyone railed up, the classic definition of a troll, no?
“Pat Buchanan has more real-world experience and is more knowledgeable of reality than any of you bedroom bloggers. But yeah, I'm sure your Women's Studies Degree is comparable to a man who was a senior advisor to three presidents.”
All that is an insult to everyone here, hence you are a troll.
Tangled with any big billy goats lately?
Actually, the experience required to understand this properly has nothing to do with formal education and work experience and everything to do with life experience as a non-white non-male. If you don't HAVE those experiences, you should listen to those who do. So to both you and Mr. Buchanan... STFU&L K thanks.
Whatever our interpretations are of affirmative action (for people of color, for women, for the poor, for entrance into education or a career), it's not intended to be the comprehensive solution that "somehow makes everything okay" - anybody involved with civil rights issues would probably acknowledge that it's not the one thing to resolve inequalities. It's a disservice to blacks to assert that they actually believe affirmative action "makes everything okay" - many of their everyday realities prove to them that getting into college or getting a job won't be the last race-related problem they will encounter in their lives or careers.
But for blacks and others who have the historical memory of being intimidated out of mainstream society for centuries, people (especially whites) being frustrated with affirmative action policies look really strange, considering it's been whites who've constructed a formidable legacy of power and control in the United States and who continue to inherit that legacy.
Well, looks like the ol' moderators headed out for mojitos at 3, so I guess I'll join them.
Maybe I'm alone in this, maybe I'm just one of those people that gets off on controversy, but I for one love it when Rachel Maddow and Pat Buchanan go at one another face to face. Okay, he doesn't deserve attention for being a racist nutter, but I'm willing to put that aside to make him defend those views - no quotes taken out of context, and he has to answer directly to the the biggest questions raised by his viewpoints. That kind of interview exposes just how wrong he is, and helps me(and hopefully others)affirm and refine how and why I hold the opinions I do. Debate is always better than no debate, because it's how the best ideas are shown to be the best.
I wonder how he feels to be so obviously intellectually and temperamentally outgunned by a lesbian.
I know the feeling.
It happens often when I
read Feministing.
Two things:
1) In addition to crying about disadvantaged people having a door opened for them and "taking" a spot from a white male, are they also crying about males with low test scores and poor grades who are let into colleges (and given scholarships) to play sports? Why not let Brainiac Kid in instead of Tackling or Dribbling Kid?
2) Isn't soon-to-be Justice Sotomayor an example of how GREAT affirmative action is? How wonderful that you can give a kid a chance--a kid who, maybe because of socioeconomic disadvantage, was given an opportunity, had a few doors opened which otherwise would not have been, and now is going to be a Supreme Court Justice? That is a ringing endorsement of Affirmative Action, in my opinion.
Great points!
I never thought about athletic scholarships that way before. I mean, they always irritated me and seemed completely against the spirit of higher education. But I never thought about them as a kind of "affirmative action" for those people who really don't have the academic qualifications to go to certain schools in the first place.
I know that many people who have athletic scholarships are also good students and are often required to maintain a high GPA. But when my school is diverting a hugely disproportionate part of the budget to our football program while at the same time our art building has been condemned for years....Just makes me angry.
Lumix,
How often can one use Affirmative Action? To get into High School? To get into College? Then to get into Law School? Then to get on the Bench? And then, on to the Supreme Court?
Is there not a point when one has to say 'listen, you have been given a boost, now you are on your own, get by on merit'?
I'm really confused about this comment. I guess I'll just try and answer your questions though I feel like you were trying to make some sort of statement with them. i don't know what that statement is.
"How often can one use Affirmative Action?"
I don't know. Affirmative Action is used in different ways depending on the institution. I think some instances of A.A. are executed better than others.
"To get into High School? To get into College? Then to get into Law School? Then to get on the Bench? And then, on to the Supreme Court?"
Well high school education is mandatory so A.A. is not applicable to that. As for college and law school, as I said before, different institutions apply affirmative action differently. Regarding getting on the bench and into the Supreme Court, as far as I know, these positions are not affected by A.A.
"Is there not a point when one has to say 'listen, you have been given a boost, now you are on your own, get by on merit'?"
Of course there is....It's not as though people who are beneficiaries of A.A. are unqualified; the students I've known who have benefited from A.A. are intelligent and very hardworking. it seems like you're suggesting that A.A. is like a welfare handout for people who don't deserve it. This is not the case, at least in my experience.
Lumix,
My point is that AA cannot be used all the time by an individual. Even if he or she benefits by it at one time in his or her education, there must comme a point when merit must take over.
I find it dispiriting if, for example, a law firm uses AA to 'even out' recruitment, and then AA is used again, later, in the appointment of Partners, for example.
If the beneficaries of the AA (at the law firm) have to rely on AA in order to become Partners, then there is something wrong with the system. If they are given an even playing field at the start of their career, then they should then have to prove themselves against all the other competitors in that firm. Just like all the other recruits.
The problem is that affirmative action is not a card that POC or others carry around with them and submit whenever they want special treatment - at least this is how these comments seem to characterize affirmative action. It's a process that varies based on which institutions we're talking about and at what levels of admission or hire need reconsidered. Saying that "they should have to prove themselves if they are given an even playing field at the start of their career" doesn't identify where that start is (the public school they go to without access to computers? the subsequent college that admits them? their first job?) or whether they can even assure that every step afterward is actually going to be fair.
In each instance of your example of the law firm, there is a different pool of people to be considered and probably different people in different leadership positions making decisions - like I said, let's talk about how we can be sure that at every level, everyone will be fair.
With respect to athletic scholarships:
I recently finished law school. My law school was relatively diverse, as law schools go. A huge proportion of the male African-American students I knew had received their undergraduate education based on an athletic scholarship. These are largely men from desperately poor backgrounds who would have had neither the qualifications nor the financial resources to attend college on their own. But, they received a chance via athletics, made the most of that chance, and have done very well for themselves.
There are lots of problems with undergraduate athletics and athletic scholarships, but there are some real benefits as well.
Wow, that's an interesting point. This happens a lot. I comment on something and then read someone else's comment and it lends me a whole new perspective. And then I wish I hadn't written my first comment.
It sucks that the only way for many individuals from minority groups to get into college is via athletic ability. But I guess the more people who get into college the better. I'm all about higher education for everyone who wants it. And it doesn't matter how they get it.
Thank you for pointing this out. While I do have issues with the way many universities blatantly worship athletics - mine included - I also see the way that sports teams give opportunities for people who may not have had a chance at a college education otherwise. Sure, many college athletes are drowning in their privilege (just like many non-athletes) and don't need the extra money, but others use their scholarships to give themselves a leg up in the world.
For example, take my college's basketball team. I attend the University of Kansas, and when we won the national championship in 2008, it propelled one of our stars into the national spotlight. He was drafted by the NBA that year, and now he is able to provide a better life for his son.
And Clarence Thomas?
Thy typical reason for athletic scholarships taking such eminent role in college life is twofold:
1) Sports teams play a role in advertising the university. There is a very small spotlight, on the undergraduate level at least, for scholastic achievement. The amount of attention a school gets for having a good football team is tremendous. To a varying degree the money spent on athletics programs mitigates money that would be otherwise spend advertising the school.
2) Enough schools generate revenue above and beyond that expended to maintain the sports programs by way of ticket and merchandising sales. Ohio State spends about 17 million on football, but brings in about 60 million in football related income. This figure does not account for money directly donated by sports obsessed alums. While OHS isn't typical, it is the aspiration of all universities to make money off sports. The justification for schools that spend more than they make is that, like any good business model, you don't depend on turning a profit at the onset of the venture and also the mitigating of advertising as I mentioned above.
Also it's not even comparable to AA. I'm not a fan of college athletics (to the point where my college newspaper stopped printing my letters on the subject), but their existence is not a reflection of anything other than the stupid values that the population at large has. If the college could make money at Math-Bowl they would, but you're not buying tickets to see it any more than I am.
Two things:
1) In addition to crying about disadvantaged people having a door opened for them and "taking" a spot from a white male, are they also crying about males with low test scores and poor grades who are let into colleges (and given scholarships) to play sports? Why not let Brainiac Kid in instead of Tackling or Dribbling Kid?
2) Isn't soon-to-be Justice Sotomayor an example of how GREAT affirmative action is? How wonderful that you can give a kid a chance--a kid who, maybe because of socioeconomic disadvantage, was given an opportunity, had a few doors opened which otherwise would not have been, and now is going to be a Supreme Court Justice? That is a ringing endorsement of Affirmative Action, in my opinion.
I absolutely understand the anti-affirmative action logic; I used to be anti-affirmative action myself. In less inflammatory rhetoric than what Pat Buchanan is capable of using, it goes something like "We should only judge people based on their merits! We should absolutely ignore race... for ALL applicants." And in the context of America's individualism-is-teh-shit attitude, that makes sense.
But, if you're a white person like me, you often don't understand that we can't start ignoring race and judging people on their merits until we make up for all of the racial disadvantages imposed on people over the centuries that still reverberate today. It took me a while to 'get' this, and for some people, like Pat Buchanan, it will take a lifetime and a half.
(By the way, everything here goes for gender as well.)
Oh and I didn't mean to imply that my little paraphrase is the only logic Pat Buchanan uses. He (and many people like him) are also operating on blatant, virulent racism. Was just pointing out the 'in-good-faith' anti-affirmative action reasoning.
One more comment from me then I'm done, I swear!
I don't know exactly how a.a. works at most colleges, but I'd love to see more class/income-based a.a., especially if it would get rid of the bullshit idea of 'legacy.' Colleges might lose some cash at first if rich donors realized it wasn't going to buy their kid into the school, but once it became the standard, people would adjust.
I'm Caucasian. I've never been against affirmative action and generally thought it was a good idea to help make up for centuries of racism. However, it did take a long while before I got what was so great about diversity.
I went to a private, mostly white college. I felt I learned a lot about my chosen subjects.
Then, I went to graduate school at a university located downtown in a major US city. There was no race who had the majority in the school. In some classes, I was one of maybe two Caucasian students. I was in a truly diverse environment.
I learned so much more from my fellow students than I did from the reading material or the professors. I never imagined that being surrounded by so many different life experiences could give me so much more knowledge and perspective on the different topics I chose to study. If not for the diversity of students I knew in grad school, I'd have lost so much in terms of my education.
People who roll their eyes at the merits of diversity seem to want to reject learning anything outside of the scope of their own experiences. And that's really just an easy way out because they're truly learning absolutely nothing.
This comment and person has been deleted.
I was watching the Maddow show when she interviewed "Pat". I really disagree that MSNBC is somehow promoting racism by having Buchanan on. They haven't exactly given him his own show. The reason Maddow had him on is because he wrote a news article saying that affirmative action is "reverse racism" and that Sotomayor isn't qualified for the job, etc. I've seen Buchanan spouting his racist views on other news shows, and I think it was about time that someone like Maddow confronted him on the air.
The fact is, Buchanan represents the views of many Americans, and if you ever want to expose the logical fallacies of attacks on AA like those coming from Buchanan, then you have to listen to him before you can articulate why he is wrong. I say this as someone who, as a young(er) person, wouldn't have understood what was wrong with what he said, although I would have felt that it was wrong.
For those of us who disagree with and are offended by Buchanan, I think that there is still something to learn from listening to him. Personally, I was shocked that he was so openly racist. I was similarly shocked by the story about Creative Steps and the Valley Club in Philly. It reminded me of how prevalent bigotry still is, and showed me how ridiculous, ignorant, and ugly the attacks on Sotomayor really are. I think the best way to challenge racist fears is to bring them into the light of day to see how ugly and wrong they are, not to pretend that they don't exist. And the best way to make fools out of people like Buchanan is to let them talk in their own words. I'm not sure I would have believed just how sincere Buchanan was unless I saw him on TV. Do people here really think that it is better for news networks not to have people like Buchanan on? I agree that there is a line to be walked, that giving racists a platform can be more harmful than helpful, but I don't think Maddow crossed this line.
I sort of think AA should be based on income/class rather than race and gender. Should Sasha and Malia Obama be eligible for positive discrimination as black women when they're applying for college? Are they really less privileged than a white man who is the first in his family to graduate high school?
Given that race and class correlate fairly strongly for the very historical injustices AA attempts to redress, the overall impact might not be that difficult, but it might be fairer.
Sorry that should be "different" not "difficult".
Actually, while race & class do correlate closely, race & class based discrimination do not correlate so closely. A middle class black man could well face equal or even greater discrimination than a poor Appalachian white man. In fact, post-college that Appalachian white man might have the education, culturing, and skills to totally escape discrimination for the rest of his life, but the black man, even with the benefit of that same education, will still face discrimination...ie, black MDs still get pulled over for DWB.
There's an old joke: "What do you call a black man with a Ph.D?" Answer: "A n*g*r". The joke still lives. About a year ago I was driving around town w/ a doctor friend of mine. A car pulled up next to us & the white people in it yelled, "You ***** need to get a job!" We both had advanced degrees, but we were just darkies to them. My fried & I looked at each other & just laughed our asses off.
Thank you, cattrack2, for someone finally arguing with the idea that just making affirmative action about income/class will make it ok. That is generally a way that white people try to coopt a very uncomfortable discussion about race into one that is more comfortable, about class. Let's be a little bit more cognizant of our own racial privilege and how we think it does or does not play into our points of view. Under a system of severe white supremacy, any person of color can be subject to discrimination/degredation at any point, unfortunately despite of class, education, or income. Besides, does it really upset people that under affirmative action A VERY FEW AMOUNT of people who have other advantages (like class/being the child of an important public figure) MIGHT benefit from it? Come on, now. Is that our excuse for not implementing affirmative action, that is might benefit a FEW people TOO MUCH? As this IS many people's excuses, it is decidedly from a place of white privilege and can only serve to dismantle affirmative action and bring us backwards...
I'm sorry but I refuse to accept that white people are a monolithic bloc of privileged people. Coming from a low-income, low-achieving background where education is not valued and the presumption is that you won't go to college is a massive structural disadvantage for millions of people, a disproportionate number of whom are not white. Saying that working-class black people have it worse than their white counterparts is true, but it is not particularly enlightening. The sons and daughters of middle-class PoC are still massively more likely to go to college and do well in life than the children of working class whites.
Race is crucial to understanding privilege, but family wealth is still the determining factor in class.
I'm going to re-post what I posted further upthread, because I think it's really relevant here:
Don't get me wrong, I think our affirmative action programs need a lot of work, and A.A. of some sort based on socio-economic class would be a big part of that-- though I think a lot of colleges already cover that in how they award certain scholarships. The original point of A.A. though is not just to help individuals who are likely to be disadvantaged; it was (and should primarily remain) something that helps individuals who are likely to be disadvantaged *due to a long history of institutional oppression of people of their minority group*. Being poor is a very different kind of minority group, and oppression of the poor is quite different from the oppression of people based on immutable and physically inheritable characteristics like race or gender.
That should read 'race or sex' D'oh
My understanding of affirmative action was that gender and race could be used as a deciding factor if an applicant was tied in other qualifications. Does anyone know if this is true or not?
The other side of this affirmative action debate that Buchanan and others tend to forget is when it works the other way: As a newly certified English teacher, when up against a man for the same job, he will have an edge because there are fewer men than women in education.
My understanding of affirmative action was that gender and race could be used as a deciding factor if an applicant was tied in other qualifications. Does anyone know if this is true or not?
The other side of this affirmative action debate that Buchanan and others tend to forget is when it works the other way. As a newly certified English teacher, when up against a man for the same job, he will have an edge because there are fewer men than women in education.
A few comments on this:
a. I've never seen a group more averse to affirmative action at any time than white HS juniors/seniors and their parents. Conditions tend to define our experiences, and it's really no different with affirmative action. It's very easy to say something's right in the abstract, but I know a lot of "progressive" people who'd never for a second give up their serious privilege. They give away token privilege in order to hide serious stuff like family wealth and connections/legacy/etc.
b. We ought not discount this. If we want to see affirmative action survive in a democratic nation we have to address the concerns of the electorate. This means explaining affirmative action thoroughly. It means educating about the value of diverse experience. It means showing the figures that state that everyone at a diverse school benefits in their future jobs because they learn better social skills. Affirmative action is, on the whole, good for everyone, but we also have to address the concerns of individuals, especially those of parents sending their kids to college.
c. Economic privilege can't be put on the back-burner in regard to AA, because otherwise it becomes and easy target. Wealth is still the primary means of gaining and holding power, and a wealthy minority is in a far better position than a poor white person from a power perspective. If this isn't addressed in regard to AA knee-jerk opponents will see this simple (and correct) criticism of AA and use it to attack a good principle on the whole.
d. Break down "objective". Too many folks believe that ten more points on the SAT or a .1 bump in GPA equals way better student. What we need to understand is that there's a lot less differentiation here than our numbers show. This means a lot of candidates are a lot more equal than we might think. A kid with 100 points less on the SAT might be just as smart as his or her counterpart, which means we need to address this issue of evaluation, as the evaluations favor the wealthy overwhelmingly.
e. In regard to college athletics, I commute an hour to college and an hour home. I get up at 6 AM to go to class. I have to make meals, study on my own, and make time to get everything done. I go to Villanova, a school with a top notch basketball team. I rarely meet anyone who works as hard as me to go to college. Every basketball player works harder than me, and by a lot. They're up earlier than me, go to bed earlier, have less free time, work more, and have to travel a ton during the school year.
College athletics, if held to proper academic standards, offer some students who are "objectively" bad the chance to learn. When we call athletes dummies we reduce them to their bodies as if that's all they have, and it's just not true. I know some players on the basketball team who are really, really smart. They can do the work at an elite college, so they're clearly not idiots. These guys are busting their humps and get an opportunity that a lot of folks in their position might never get otherwise.
If we are to value people holistically we ought not exclude athletic gifts any more than a talent for the piano, or photography. Nova basketball is a display of grace, agility, and strength that puts ballet to shame, but because a lot of athletes are either minorities or simply of large physical stature we reduce their unique contribution to the equivalent of manual labor, and it's anything but.
College athletics are an easy target because of stereotypes, but I'd ask anyone taking a potshot at them to try getting up at 5:30 AM in July, go running in 80 degree heat, do workouts, eat breakfast, go to class, eat lunch, work out, study/do homework, eat dinner, relax for perhaps an hour, sleep, and then repeat that the next day. I know people who do this and still get A's. It's incredible, yet outsiders look at them like idiots, as opposed to what they are: gifted performers with incredible drive and motivation.
I don't have a thing against college athletes. I do not like the way coaches at some schools have been able to fix academic and disciplinary issues to keep their star players in the game.
One thing to think about is race-based affirmative action should be seen as a short-term fix to problems of racial discrimination.
I read an article in high school (don't remember who wrote it) that argued that affirmative action is like a Band-Aid for the wounds of racism, going on to suggest that more be done at lower levels of education (elementary schools, etc.) to decrease the gap between black and white students. It suggested related problems like inequality between schools, lack of support for single-family homes where the parent is working long hours, a change in the culture of how young kids look at education, teachers' disinterest to work in low-income inner city schools, and the need for more positive role models for young students.
While I didn't agree with the article completely, it did give me a lot to think about. I definitely do think that attacking the problem at its roots (putting some Neosporin on the wound instead of just covering it up) will help out, especially if current affirmative action policies stay in place to increase the presence of people of color among the elites in government and academia.
I sincerely disagree that early education is the 'root' of the problem, but I'll second this sentiment nonetheless.
No matter what humorous cartoon you use for the point racism is racism and people are going to develop resentment. It's too bad that our forefathers were too ignorant and discriminative but is deliberately changing who gets positions for a while really going to change attitudes or address the proble at it's root?
If a fireman is hired based on colour rather than skill and the white man would have been better at the job then that is discrimination and also could put the health of his co-workers in jeopardy.
"is deliberately changing who gets positions for a while really going to change attitudes or address the proble at it's root?" Studies do show that when we see more varied kinds of people in various positions, we DO become more accepting of that kind of person having that kind of position. Of course, affirmative action is a band-aid, is not radical solution, but it does serve to even out a very few amount of inequalities that exist. And, as a commentor expressed above, most "affirmative action" programs choose equally qualified candidates and favor race/background as a significant factor in choosing who should get the position. Since most of the time, being white gives you the favored position, then affirmative action just assures that it is not the default race.
You have to keep in mind that the actions of our forefathers made it impossible for blacks to accumulate or pass on property. It was institutional oppression of every sort, and that reverberates through generations. So, yes, giving a few more spots to people who have been denied a certain amount of inherited wealth and power due to institutional discrimination of people of their immutable, inheritable physical characteristics is fair.
I'm a white, middle class female college student, and half of my tuition is in scholarships. There's a small chance I might have gotten more-- or gotten into a better school-- if not for race-based affirmative action (though gender works in my favor). But given all of the other advantages I'm getting in life based on my race, it's hardly worth complaining about.
We really have to keep in mind that, despite what everyone has told us growing up, we can't just be judged on our merits. Even if every human being judged every other human being solely on hir merits (and that's really stretching it), we're ignoring the larger picture-- we don't just interact 1-on-1 but as parts of groups, institutions... SOCIETY. Living in society means we have certain roles and it also means we give some things up for others.
There is a such a thing as "reverse racism." Personally, I don't like the term as it's racism itself. But also I don't think that's what affirmative action is about. I'm white and I would never say I experienced more or the same amount of racism as my peers of color. But yes, I've met people who were racist against whites.
You need some serious anti-racism 101 education.
People of any color can be PREJUDICED against people of any other color because of their color, and that is (of course) wrong. But only the dominant group can be racist, because racism not only involves prejudice but POWER.
For more on a.a. specifically, please see my response to ForwardPink above.
Yeah, because nowhere do blacks have power. Oh wait, I went to a mostly black school for a while. There were plenty of blacks that hated me just because I was white. Since I was a minority there, I had little power. And when I did the exact same thing as a black student, I was punished more severly. So don't say that no one is racist against whites.
I'm a woman in engineering school, so I imagine affirmative action has helped me in admissions. The idea of being judged on my gender really bothers me; I'd rather be just purely on my qualifications (some of which I know are subjective and hard to define). And I don't want anyone to be able to say that I only got where I am because of affirmative action.
I don't understand how judging people based on their race and gender can ever make up for racism and sexism.
Affirmative action was never intended to "make up for racism and sexism" - it's not reparations or pay-back. I think that everyone would like to be judged on their qualifications and avoid being accused of getting somewhere because of some kind of special treatment. But affirmative action doesn't function to "judge" people based on race or sex. Rather than being some kind of special treatment, affirmative action was intended to be a temporary plan for assuring that people of color and others at a disadvantage will be represented at many levels of institutions. It's difficult to prove absolutely that someone didn't get a job or into school because they were a woman or because they were of color, but it's just as hard to be sure, without some kind of measure like affirmative action, that people aren't going to be discriminatory.
If people have problems with affirmative action, what are their solutions?
Wow, I'm so late on this, but anyway-
Most of the complaints I've personally heard (not talking about Buchanan and the nutso-kablooeies, but people I actually know, and some of whom, I respect) about affirmative action are based on a very generalized idea of what constitutes privilege. To them, the idea that they're privileged because they're white and they're male or white and middle classed, doesn't make sense because life's not going the way they want it to. They don't feel like they've personally been given any breaks, and they've seen people get hired for what they believe to be quota systems, and they feel it's just not fair. Because they're were told that if they worked hard, did evreything right, and went to college, they'd get the house and the dog and the wife and the kiddums, and things would be fine. Now things suck, and America seems to be imploding in on itself like a dwarf star, and things are hard for everyone, and two generations of kids from middle class backgrounds who had enough money to go to college but not enough to pay for it out of a trust fund are saddled with loans and growing disillusioned.
The shame of it is who they choose to blame-"Oh, it's affirmative action, and the minority groups who feel they're enititled to things because they're minorities," when the real culprits are the puppet masters and the dickheads who hold the strings that run the world. I suspect that a majority of people who decry affirmative action, or race conscious policies aren't openly racist, and probably don't harbor that many racist feelings. Not all-there are probably a good amount who do. But i think a large part of it is not, "Why is the minority getting my job?" but "Why aren't i getting a job? Why aren't I happy?" I understand their frustration, but I wish to god they'd look a little deeper, and examine their attitudes a little harder, and wonder why they feel that they automatically get a good life, and why the world owes them something.
Pat Buchanan is a bigot, pure and simple. You can really see his Freudian Slip showing when he talks about whites only fighting at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. Actually, black soldiers fought in both battles (esp Vicksburg, where they cut off the city and won the battle). That is, they fought FOR THE UNION and not the Confederacy! Buchanan also mentions Normandy. Well, blacks fought there too -only they fought for the Allies -not for the Nazis!
Affirmative action is racism period and end of story.
"I'm sorry, you have the highest score but... we have our quota of white people today."
This is racism and no amount of little cartoons will change that.
There is no such thing as "reverse racism" as that implies that "racism" is prejudice against non-whites by whites: as if only whites can be prejudiced.
I have experienced more anti-white racism from black and hispanic persons than I have seen white people express towards black and hispanic persons (except online.) It's perfectly okay for a black person to call me "cracker" (I find this disgusting: My family has never owned slaves, but as Irish we have been treated as slaves) but I'm not even allowed to disassociate myself from violent/criminal black persons without being accused of racism. (Actually, I avoid all violent and criminal persons of all shapes sizes and colors.)
I'm sure this somehow makes me racist. But in reality I'm probably least racist of anyone here: I don't give a shit what color you are. If you're the best person for the job you should have it. It should *not* *ever* be a racial issue if you're an hispanic or black or female and there's a quota to fill so we have "EQUALITY OF OUTCOME" rather than "EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY".
Pat struck me as very sincere. He sincerely said "hello, nice to be here." and sincerely said "I enjoyed it as I always do." when it was over. Rachel, however, had this sly smirk like "I've run out of things to say and repeating over and over '108 out of 110' is losing it's luster so we're out of time now."
I wish we had more people like Pat in charge. For real he makes some great arguments and "You're playing with fire." or "You're dated." just doesn't refute him, IMHO.