Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have demanded that African-American students be given free tuition and housing because blacks were denied access to college educations for much of our history. They also opposed the use of standardized test scores as a barrier to black students.
Notably, George Washington University has also dropped the requirement of SAT or ACT scores expressly to boast minority student enrollment. Such scores were denounced by the Associated Students of Madison as a vehicle of “white supremacy.”
The Black Liberation Collective, a national organization, has also demanded such accommodation for African-American students.
The Madison students also demand access to the university for black people, including former inmates.
Obviously, such proposals for struggling universities would impose not only huge costs but also a challenge to maintaining the ranking of the school if students are no longer required to have competitive scores.
What do you think?
This is harder than I THINK.
Doing math while black:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/nyregion/new-york-math-camp.html
Some can.
Shame on you Benson, for not sharing your love with me.
The link says to go to another link.
The life and career of an Afro-American:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elson_Floyd
No special favors for him.
Reblogged this on Bob's Opinion and commented:
COULD IT BE, That this is the very thing that has been being used to dumb-down America? except for the free part… it just creates a dumb workforce and more dumb people… glad they didn’t include whites in the no standardizing on test scores… but this is absolutely the worse thing that could happen to the black Americans …
It makes sense to me to provide programs that give low income and at risk kids extra help at the K-12 level. I don’t think that should be based on race or as any kind of reparation for anything. It seems that what is being left out of the discussion is the “Ragged Dick” part of American history. People have immigrated or been born here into poverty and are told that they can be anything they want with determination and hard work. I have always thought that is a big part of what made America what it is, what made people want to come here because of equality of opportunity. Is that not still the case?
So what about the woman in the ancestry.com television ad who bought a DNA testing kit and found out that she is 26% American Indian? Does she get a rebate on any college tuition that she may have paid 10 years ago? I too, recently purchased a DNA testing kit, and although I appear to be as white as typing paper, was surprised to find out that I have a small amount of Spanish blood. Which pisses me off. Had I known, I could have played the “minority rewards game” and gone to an elite private law school instead of a state school. Oh well, maybe I’m at least entitled to an immediate promotion at work. 😉
TIN – the federal courts have held you can claim to be any race you want. There was a woman who sued because her bosses were prejudiced against because she was black. About a year later, she sued again but this time she was white.
Paul, I had a classman many years ago who applied to U.C. Davis as a Hispanic and wasn’t admitted. The following year she applied as a black and got in. At the time I was shocked that someone would do that, but nobody seemed to care……
Sorry- I did not read this long thread. Maybe it was said already:
Youtube! Talk about a college education for free! Then there’s things like MIT’s free course stuff- remember that genius kid who got a serious degree masters/doc using their free stuff?
http://news.mit.edu/2015/ahaan-rungta-mit-opencourseware-mitx-1116
Libraries! Go get yourself a card, and damn if there isn’t a massive sea of knowledge. (I suppose that’s why you need an inkling of what you’d like to study before seriously tackling a degree)
Get a job. Any job. Own it, be proud of your product (even if it is a toilet which is spotless for three minutes), and listen to the older folks around you.
Plus this here internet is what I consider the modern “Library of Alexandria”. So much stuff…
OOPS he did not get his degree yet. STILL!!!
AH Well, off to clean the toilets.
Considering highly educated left wing Democrat idiots never miss an opportunity to characterize America as a bigoted, hateful, oppressive country, I was curious how many blacks have voluntarily chosen to immigrate to this God forbidden shithole of a country left wingers fantasize it to be. Pew says about 2 million since the 1965 Immigration Act. The source wikipedia uses says about 3 million. Counting their descendants, I’m guessing it is a few million.
Furthermore, despite the hate, bigotry and oppression left wing Democrats imagine consumes our society, these African immigrants are extremely high performing. An extraordinary 49% have college degrees which is more than twice the rate of native born Caucasian Americans. Almost 20% have graduate degrees, compared to about 8% of Caucasian Americans and just under 4% of what I will call “native Black Americans” (meaning blacks descended from people who have lived in America for multiple generations). One sub category, Nigerian Americans, stand out. 29% of Nigerian Americans have graduate degrees. Only 5% of Nigerian American children fail to complete high school, compared to about 33% of “native Black Americans” who drop out. The median income for Nigerian Americans is about $62K per year, compared to $60K for whites and $36.5K for all Black Americans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_immigration_to_the_United_States#Educational_attainment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income
It is weird that millions of black Africans voluntarily choose to immigrate to what highly educated Democrats portray as a bigoted, racist, oppressive country. It is also weird that in a bigoted, hateful, oppressive country, these black immigrants do extremely well economically and educationally. We have to learn how to do oppression better. We don’t seem to have the hang of it.
So why are Caucasian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans going to subsidize the educations of these high performing immigrants just because they won the lottery by being born with black skin?
What about the Irish? They where discriminated against in America when they came over. No cover charge anytime. But Not The Irish! A movie comes to mind here. Same movie as the last comment. So, fellow commenters: What is the name of the movie? Not The Irish! and Where da white women at?
Blazing Saddles!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTmfwklFM-M
Mel Brooks understood college administrators.
That, my friends, was authentic Frontier Gibberish!
Do they want exclusively all black housing? All black teachers? All black sex mates? All black history classes? All black dining hall? Where da ….
I was very shocked a few years ago, maybe 5 or so… to learn there was all black housing at, of all places, UC Berkeley. At that time, to be blunt, they were purposefully admitting students who should not be there, not academically able to cut it. Someone at Cal got the not bright idea that to offer supportive (really what it was) housing where more challenged students (one was profiled in an LA Times article) would be helped by others who were able to do well at Berkeley. I found it appalling then, the UC system and the many community colleges have plenty of places for students not able to hack Cal, or Davis, other of the top universities.
More recently with the onset of ”snowflakes” and ”triggering” and all the other words, at several UC campuses (think this version started at UC San Jose) there is, by choice, black only student housing. To get around the actual laws against segregated housing, it is presented as available by choice, if you wish to learn about the black experience. You should see some of the quotes that have appeared in the press, students openly stating they don’t want to be bothered having whites around. That is a fairly mild version, I have read stronger more offensive quotes…. I read them and just turn them around in my head… “we don’t want to be bothered by having blacks around”. Geesh Good Luck.
Thank God for Trump.!!
Never, thought I would hear myself say that.!
Evaluate, these people, mentally, as part of delivering FREE EDUCATION….and build new Mental Facilities, to house them.!
Is it illness, or arrogance, run amok.??
A degree from Trump University is a worthless ripoff.
He never offered degrees. There might have been some sort of completion certificate. ‘Trump University’ was a series of seminars on the real-estate business. The complaint about it has been that the instructors weren’t real-estate mavens who’d made their bones in that business, but general sales types whose skill was reeling people in.
A Trump education is the opposite of a free education. At Trump University you pay a lot and get nothing.
Oh, and let me add one more thing about Affirmative Action. My father worked with an African American Harvard Graduate. He earned his degree. However, with Affirmative Action, everyone who came into contact with him dismissed him as having a pity degree, as skating by on his skin color. He said this guy would be openly mocked and disdained in every single negotiation where he was ever present. Every. Single. Time. And my Dad and the others would lambast them for it. But he was forced to defend his credentials every single time. Bar none.
Don’t repeat this disastrous mistake for a whole new generation of African Americans. Don’t cut the legs out from under their accomplishments and belittle them.
Yup.
And Latinos not to mention the very few indigenes who obtain a college degree.
Oh yes. Around here Asians are “white”.
KarenS:
That’s the natural consequence of trashing merit and according honors based purely on immutable characteristics. You build inevitable resentment from those who weren’t given preferential treatment even against those who actually earned the degree and are now suspected of being tokens.
The people who thought this African-American fellow had a “pity degree” are in turn denigrated by the people who didn’t have to have third-party financing for their college degrees because their old-money families could afford it. Where does the stratification end?
Does it make people feel better that they’re better than others? People who downgrade others for “pity degrees” are the problem! Don’t accept their perspective.
The people who thought this African-American fellow had a “pity degree” are in turn denigrated by the people who didn’t have to have third-party financing for their college degrees because their old-money families could afford it. Where does the stratification end?
The number of people with the assets or influence to be properly referred to as ‘upper-class’ make up less than 3% of the population. Those among them who are ‘old money’ are a smaller share still. Currently, baccalaureate-granting institutions are sucking up about 43% of each age cohort, so the old money types don’t make up a large fraction of the student body.
A faculty member who served on a crucial committee at a private college which is exceptionally assiduous and exceptional in cultivating it’s alumni reported to a general faculty meeting ca. 2001 that there were in the incoming student body 57 individuals in the category of ‘legacy / political relations’ (out of nearly 700 admitted). ‘Legacies’ are merely people with relatives who are known to have attended previously. There’s a high correlation between parental academic performance and a youngster;s performance, so the number not meeting ordinary performance standards will be only a modest subset of the 57 students to which she referred. We’re likely talking about perhaps 50 people in a school which enrolls nearly 3,000 people. They do not form a distinct subculture at the school in question nor are they pleased to advertise their status. There aren’t facilities set up to cater to them, or academic programs set up to study them as a subculture. Nobody’s broken up when they flunk out except the person in the dean of students’ office who has to talk to their father over the phone. (And, likely someone in the fundraising apparat). The sort of institution where you see this – Private research universities and private colleges with a certain amount of cachet – account for maybe 10% or 12% of those enrolled in baccalaureate granting institutions. Rich kids who are where they are because someone pulled strings for them are an unimportant fraction of student bodies as a whole.
Steve Groen – did we forget the ‘gentleman’s C’ at Harvard?
About 20 years ago, an old professor at Dartmouth wrote an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education explaining grade inflation at schools like Dartmouth, a phenomenon he dated to about 1962. He said the faculty ‘ere that point compared their students to each other, which only seems sensible. The average student gets a C, above average a B, and so forth. What he said was there came a point when they realized that students they thought prepared were not getting into graduate and professional schools. They tried remonstrating with faculty at these institutions, he said, but were told ‘you think your C’s are our B’s, and it’s not true’. They figured that by inflating the grades, they were helping their students in ways that they merited. Not sure if this is true or not. You’d think grad school admissions committees could read the GRE and other board scores and adjust their expectations accordingly. If the story’s true, it’s another indication of how academe does nothing well.
I don’t know the meaning of that, Paul.
Steve Groen – a ‘gentleman’s C’ is the lowest grade given at Harvard.
I spent a semester in law school studying legal history with a lawyer/professor who was also a Ph.D. in higher education. He was a good teacher if you paid attention and very demanding of the hour he had with us. A pretty smart cookie he was and a very intense academic. He was also a fellow at ALI at that time and wrote a book – really a treatise – on McCulloch v. Maryland
This fellow gave two grades separate by a slash mark in our blue books – something I’d never seen before. The first was representative of what he considered the scale of the actual students in the class and the second was what he considered the student’ grade had it been place among students at the top tier laws schools (or something along those lines). I received an A/B- in that class – one of the three As I received in three years of law school. At least I wasn’t humiliated. 🙂
Just a head’s up. The way not to reach me is to begin with “spent a semester” and conclude with “law school.”
College is a great thing! But I’m fifty four, get over it.
Sorry. You’re much older than I am.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
“People who downgrade others for “pity degrees” are the problem!”
Let’s say you have a brain tumor, and you have a choice of 2 doctors, post-this-experiment. One doctor is black, and graduated from a university where you know he got in without taking an SAT, know he was not given testing in the school, know he was given everything for free but not held to the same high standard as any other nationality.
And the other doctor is any other nationality than black, so you know he had to have a good SAT score, and had to pass rigorous testing.
Now…who would you want to zip open your skull?
A degree must be earned. Any accomplishment must be earned. If it’s a participation trophy, it does not denote any skill.
This is not a criticism of financial aid or scholarships to the needy, but talented.
Oh, please. While only one of them may have taken the SAT, it’s a given that the MCAT would have been a requirement for both of them. Such drama.
No special treatment is provided to anyone with regards to the passing of USMLE which is three part test given in medical school. I think you need to educate yourself on the process of becoming a licensed physician before disqualify a black physician based on what you perceive to be a deficient SAT.
If you knew a frigiin thing about surgery, you would know that skilled hands are more important that an SAT taken in high school.
“One doctor is black, and graduated from a university where you know he got in without taking an SAT, know he was not given testing in the school, know he was given everything for free but not held to the same high standard as any other nationality.”
Karen, I don’t know any schools like that. Do you?
Where are all these third parties financing degrees? I’m not proud. I’ll take the cash, now, that should have gone to my racist degree. The line forms to my right.
Was his name Barack Obama? 😄
BO does well on standardized tests and blind examinations. If he received mulligans, it was as a consequence of lousy grades derived from apathy. He graduated from Harvard Law School with honors (magna cum laude, I believe), so he was intellectually adequate for that institution. The trouble with BO is that elements of his character render his intellect almost useless to him and he has no discernable intellectual interests.
From where, pray tell, are you gleaning this vast array of supposed knowledge? You know how well BO scored on standardized tests, or, for that matter, on any kind of tests throughout the duration of his time in school? As far as I know, BO never released his transcripts. Has that changed? Is there, suddenly, some wealth of information about his scores on any tests or his grades from any school which he attended? Please, cite your source. If not, why would you spout any knowledge about said grades or aptitude in taking exams when said knowledge, outside of his inner circle, doesn’t exist?
William Dyer ‘Beldar’ had a discussion ca. 2009 on what’s known of BO’s academic record. Steven Sailer has also addressed the issue of his test scores, so, yes, some fragmentary information is out there. It’s always been public that he graduated from HLS with honors. Both Sailer and Dyer indicate that the available information indicates that BO’s general intelligence is more than adequate. Dyer also adds that law school performance is a more valid measure than undergraduate performance. Sailer has taken an interest in Michelle Obama’s record as well. Per Sailer, the timing of Mooch’s degree and the timing of her bar admission indicate that she failed the exam the first time or skipped it, while her husband did not (passing it on the first attempt).
There are lots of lawyers in legislative bodies, but not may lawyers who prospered at law practice and gave it up. The vast majority were hack lawyers like BO. Ted Cruz and Joseph Lieberman are big exceptions.
Again, mentioning some obscure figure, with no actual or proven access to BO’s test scores or his unique ability to successfully take and complete said tests, doesn’t win you any points. Just be honest–you are clueless as to his strengths or weaknesses in this regard. We all are. Better to state that fact than to make up some claims, out of whole cloth, which cannot be substantiated. Unless there is proof, as to his test scores, which have been released to the public, your claims as to his prowess in successfully taking standardized tests remain bogus. While I am, admittedly, not a fan of BO or Michelle, I would not speculate as to his aptitude with regard to taking standardized tests, or, any other kind of test, for that matter. I do find it highly suspicious, however, that over the course of eight years, not a single person, that I can recall, has ever come forward to state that he or she was a fellow student with him at Harvard Law School. Not a single person. Let’s be frank here, okay? A black law student, mid 1980’s, at Harvard Law School, who is the Editor of the Law Review–not exactly someone who flew under the radar. No one claims to have known him. I find that beyond bizarre. Forget his alleged grades. Was he a ghost? If one knows anything about those individuals, who are bestowed with the highly prestigious mantle and title of Editor of Law Review, one knows, with certainty, that those same individuals are to be found at the top of their respective law school classes. They aren’t the slouches, found at the bottom of the heap. Why then, if BO was chosen for such a lofty position, with what one could assume are exemplary grades, would he choose to obfuscate said transcripts?
You have apparently persuaded yourself that he’s some sort of Manchurian Candidate with a fictitious biography (in the manufacture of which Columbia University officials and Harvard officials have co-operated). You haven’t bothered to read profiles of Obama wherein acquaintances from that era are interviewed, ergo no such people exist.
Let’s see those transcripts. The ones that he insists upon hiding, despite those allegedly magnificent grades that he racked up over the course of his education. Someone with such a bloated and overextended ego, such as Obama, would have no reason to hesitate in showing those amazing transcripts, now would he? What? You think that he is some shy, humble schoolgirl, to embarrassed to reveal his outstanding achievements? You can cite any bogus interviews that you wish. Not one contains any specific information, which is readily verifiable. I know, that suits you delusional and cult-like followers, who suspend all reason and logic when it deals with the inconsistencies and irregularities of your Messiah. Keep drinking the Koolaid.
Too, not to embarrassed.
Your delusional, not you delusional.
Bam Bam, John Kerry and George W. Bush did not release their transcripts, either. Moles in the apparat at Yale and BC released them on the sly. It’s a reasonable wager the administration at Columbia and Harvard took precautions with BO they didn’t take with these others. That tells you something about the mentality of the administrators there. But that’s not your thesis. Your thesis is that he was never enrolled at either institution. That’s a stupid thesis. Get a copy of the Harvard Law Review (or look at a JSTOR pdf file) published in 1991 and you’ll see his name there on the bloody masthead. I provide you a link with a period photo of the board of editors. There’s “B.Obama” in the caption for the 3d row. You can visit the archivist for the Harvard Libraries and ask to see the commencement programs for 1991. You can do the same at Columbia. His name will be there on the program.
Let’s see the transcripts.
That’ll tell you what his GPA was and what courses he took.. Since he graduated magna cum laude (and that will be on the commencement program), you know his GPA was adequate. The GPA is a mildly interesting datum.
Harvard’s cooperation with this scheme including taking group portraits where a stand-in for this fictitious person was placed in the 3d row of the group photo of the editors
And also included sending bogus press releases to The New York Times
Also participating in this ruse is the Supreme Court of Illinois, which says this fictitious person was admitted to the Illinois bar on 17 December 1991.
http://via.lib.harvard.edu/via/deliver/chunkDisplay?_collection=via&inoID=319464&recordNumber=1&chunkNumber=4&method=view&image=full&startChunkNum=0&endChunkNum=0&totalChunkCount=0
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/06/us/first-black-elected-to-head-harvard-s-law-review.html
https://www.iardc.org/ldetail.asp?id=851942848
This is William Dyer’s discussion of Obama’s tenure at the Harvard Law Review.
http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2008/06/why-didnt-obama.html
And his discussion about ways one might interpret his academic record at Harvard
http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2008/06/nyt-obama-stand.html
Steve Sailer’s discussion of the demographics of LSAT takers in 1987-88 is here
http://www.unz.com/isteve/obamas-lsat-score/
Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law. That is no easy feat and requires a gpa. of about 4.6. Do you think you could do that?
anon – you sure you don’t mean 3.6?
Sure. 4.6 or 5.6. Does it really matter? He’s the Messiah. The Second Coming. He can do anything.
Magna Cum Laude is not necessarily about GPA. Recommendations play into it as well. From Harvard’s website:
=====
Magna Cum Laude in a Field: A candidate may be recommended by the Faculty for the degree magna cum laude in a concentration or joint concentration provided he or she has been recommended to the Faculty for High Honors or Highest Honors by a school, department, or special committee appointed by the Faculty for this purpose. For May degrees, the Faculty will recommend those students with the highest grade point averages who have not already been recommended for the degree summa cum laude, so that the total number of degrees summa cum laude and magna cum laude sum to 20 percent of all May degree candidates. The minimum grade point average that is awarded a degree magna cum laude each May will constitute the standard to be applied for that degree at subsequent degree meetings until the following May.
=====
What Magna Cum Laude basically means is that he was in the top 20 percent of degree candidates, and not necessarily from his GPA.
What do you think the reason is for why Obama never released his college transcripts? I remember reading in his book where Obama said that he was an average student.
http://static.fas.harvard.edu/registrar/ugrad_handbook/current/chapter2/honors_requirements.html
It’s his default to not release information. I suspect the imbroglio over the birth certificate was some sort of bank shot. You had people wasting their attention on that and looking like clowns as a diversion. That would suggest there;s something else he really does wish to conceal. BO gets special treatment by the press and institutions. My guess is that we haven’t seen the transcripts for one or another of two reasons (1) a consequential administrator signed out the microfilm in 2004 and threw it in a safe in his office, where it sits today and / or (2) news outlets are not willing to suborn or bribe officials of Columbia and Harvard, which they were willing to do to get Kerry’s transcripts and Bush’s. Recall that the press was working hand in glove with low level court employees and BO campaign officials to get dirt into the press about his opponents in 2004.
It’s possible the transcripts are embarrassing. Steven Sailer’s thesis is that BO landed a berth at Harvard due to excellent LSAT scores and that his college grades are quite blah.
None of this matters much. He was admitted to the Illinois bar without a hitch in December 1991. He also has several PhDs among his proximate relatives (great-aunt and closer). His father had a graduate degree from Harvard. There’s nothing wrong with his intellect per se.His problems are characterological. His father’s salient vices you could summarize in a couple of sentences. BO’s are more esoteric.
Mike A:
“White guilt isn’t the issue, but compensation for exacting hundreds of years of productive labor from a race of people is not an absurd notion. The common law has recognized for hundreds of years that there ought to be a remedy for benefits conferred and accepted without consideration: it’s called restitution.”
I understand your point. This is what we have paid so far in restitution:
1) Our entire country went to war to free the slaves. About 620,000 soldiers died, and their widows and children suffered badly without the breadwinner. Can you imagine the widows’ reaction that this was not enough?
2) Our country went through the Civil Rights Movement to remedy lingering racism, and has fought it ever since.
3) We have paid $668 billion per year on various Welfare programs. That figure fluctuates year to year, but every year it adds up to “a lot.”
4) We have scholarships, grants, after school programs, and any number of expensive programs designed specifically to help the African Americans among us who are still struggling
5) We have anti-gang task forces to try to fight the number one cause of gun violence in America – the gangs comprised of African Americans and Latinos who are a scourge on their neighborhoods
We have spent untold riches on trying to help the African American descendants of African tribespeople who sold their rivals into slavery. And to be told, after all this blood, sweat, and treasure, that we don’t do anything for them, or enough, or should feel guilty or inferior, because of slavery that ended 160 years ago, or because racism still exists across the globe against pretty much everyone…it’s discouraging. My God, if this isn’t enough, then nothing will be.
How about if we just fight racism when it rears its ugly head, try our best to improve our education system, help kids in bad neighborhoods stay in school and see the reason to stay in school, and improve our jobs outlook? Maybe that would be more productive and unifying than this divisive inclination to scapegoat every white person, especially white males.
I had a cousin of mine very earnestly explain to me that all white people (herself included) are born racist and privileged and bad, and that included my sweet little boy who thinks people come in a marvelous variety of colors, shapes, sizes, accents, and abilities.
A lot of us are seriously getting tired of divisive politics, guilt, dividing people into neat little boxes to hate, and the self defeating victim mentality… We’ve had enough.
We need to come together or we’ll tear each other apart.
And as for those neat little boxes the hard Left uses to label us…take a group of 50 people and you can shuffle them around into any number of little boxes – gun owners, beliefs on abortion, religion, victims, bullies, racists, minorities, politics, rural vs urban, pet owners, military…No one box defines any one of us.
And let me also add that my frustration is not with you, at all. It’s with this constant ubiquitous pressure to divide and subjugate and find more and more reasons to blame and hate each other. I really grieve that this has become an acceptable trend today.
white resentment on view
More like white guilt.
Mike A:
You’re off the deep end of the ocean on this black reparations nonsense:
1. Who pays? Do I pay even though my ancestors arrived here 50 years after blacks were liberated? If so, why?
2. Who do I pay? Every victim of slavery is long gone. Do I pay ancestors? How deep do I go down the tree? Third cousins twice removed, maybe?
3. Do we get credits for the lives of 400,000 soldiers from the Union army who lost their lives freeing the slaves? How much is that credit?
4. Do we get a credit for welfare payments paid to descendants of slaves? How about a credit for reverse discrimination in the admissions into colleges and professional schools in favor of blacks? Payments to to HBCs?
5. Does every descendent get paid? How about convicted felons? What about deadbeat or absent dads? Child abusers? Domestic abusers?
6. How much do I pay? What’s being a descendant of a slave worth? Do I pay for a set time or just guarantee them an income for life?
7. My Italian ancestors were discriminated agianst, too. Where’s my check?
Guilty is a bad thing, but trying to right every historical wrong by placing it on the backs of others is worse. The sins of the father do not devolve to the son in a democracy and they sure as Hell don’t devolve to folks who weren’t involved int the first place in a just society. There is of a remedy for every historic wrong, Mike A. Sorry.
Karen, it might well be argued that blacks today in the USA have it so much better than the blacks who remained in their home countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, etc. So why do some beat the drum about the need for reparations and restitution?
That’s easy! They want the benefits, if white folks are stupid enough to provide them. And they know that they have to get the benefits soon, because as the U.S. becomes increasingly non-white, the Hispanics and Asians aren’t going to agree to the shakedown, like the naive descendants of European peasants have done.
As usual, the comments on this post are all over the place. But here goes. That racism is a persistent problem is this country is simply not debatable by rational people, but lowering standards for, or expectations from, any student are not a solution to deficiencies in educational attainment. Equal educational opportunity needs to be guaranteed from early childhood, and paid for by public funds. It isn’t.
The suggestion that residency patterns in major cities are simply a function of rental costs and preference is absolute nonsense. Any real estate lawyer understands that discriminatory deed restrictions in subdivision plats continued to be recorded years after those restrictions were declared unlawful. And we know from human nature that even unenforceable laws can produce their intended results, which is why they continue to be adopted by legislatures on a number of topics. Further, the concentration of black populations in major cities, such as Milwaukee, was also encouraged by the growth of sundown towns around the perimeter, in effect herding people into neighborhoods defined by race.
Despite all of the hoopla over school vouchers, the fact is that the concept was not created as a response of concerned parents to perceived educational failure. It gradually developed as a means of financing all of the private “academies” that sprouted like mushrooms as soon as the courts started issuing school desegregation orders. The principal effect of voucher programs to date has been a shifting of tax dollars from public schools to unregulated private schools, primarily religious schools, which means that my tax dollars subsidize instruction in the teaching of faith traditions with which I personally disagree (including faith traditions which rabidly preach against my own). It is not a coincidence that the popularity of Blaine Amendment legislation has declined with the increase in the number of non-Catholic religious schools.
The constant blather that black people want everything for free is the sort of drivel that has been promoted since the adoption of the first civil rights acts. White guilt isn’t the issue, but compensation for exacting hundreds of years of productive labor from a race of people is not an absurd notion. The common law has recognized for hundreds of years that there ought to be a remedy for benefits conferred and accepted without consideration: it’s called restitution. That’s why redistribution of land was proposed following the civil war. The phrase “40 acres and a mule” didn’t turn out to mean much. But doesn’t this mean that the sins of the father are visited on the son? Of course. They always have been.
As usual, the comments on this post are all over the place. But here goes. That racism is a persistent problem is this country is simply not debatable by rational people,
It most certainly is. Let’s see your bibliography of econometric studies enumerating the effect of contemporary racial discrimination on wage rates.
The suggestion that residency patterns in major cities are simply a function of rental costs and preference is absolute nonsense.
No it is not.
Any real estate lawyer understands that discriminatory deed restrictions in subdivision plats continued to be recorded years after those restrictions were declared unlawful.
No they don’t. The number of lawyers currently practicing who were admitted to the bar prior to 1971 is tiny, much less the number practicing in 1948.
And we know from human nature that even unenforceable laws can produce their intended results,
No we don’t know that.
Pro-tip: if you want to be mistaken for a blimp, continue arguing just like this.
Mike A – here is my issue. My people are both Irish and German and came to this country during the Civil War. They never owned slaves. Why should I have to pay restitution? That isn’t equity, that is punishment for being white.
I hear you, Paul. My maternal grandmother’s side emigrated from Germany just before WWI. My paternal grandfather faced down a KKK mob with his shotgun in the street. I have ancestors who fought for the Yankees, and ancestors who fought for the Rebs, and one ancestor who went against his own family and friends and joined the North instead of fighting for the South. So what degree of guilt do I have, genetically? And how must the sons pay for the sins of the father?
What about African Americans who emigrated here in the past 50 years, descended from the warring tribes who sold the ancestors of the slaves to the slavers? My God, what kind of restitution should they owe? What about the descendants of those who persecuted the Chinese or the Irish in the world when everyone was biased?
But I’m white, so I’m “bad” and I owe restitution. Just another assumption based on skin color.
Karen – Po, according to his own account, own a slave in Somalia that he freed before he came to the US. How much restitution does he owe to his ex-slave?
Speaking of laws that have been struck down as unconstitutional, here’s an interesting Georgia statute that apparently is still on the books, but which was struck down as violative of the state constitution’s right to privacy:
OCGA section 16-6-2. Sodomy
(a)(1) A person commits the offense of sodomy when he or she performs or submits to any sexual act involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another. . . .
(b)(1) Except as provided in subsection (d) of this Code section, a person convicted of the offense of sodomy shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than 20 years and shall be subject to the sentencing and punishment provisions of Code Section 17-10-6.2.
I guess the Georgia Legislature is waiting for conservatives to reign supreme again. Conservatives love everybody else’s bedroom but their own.
Speaking of half-baked, half truths, here’s the entire relevant part of statute:
2010 Georgia Code
TITLE 16 – CRIMES AND OFFENSES
CHAPTER 6 – SEXUAL OFFENSES
§ 16-6-2 – Sodomy; aggravated sodomy; medical expenses
O.C.G.A. 16-6-2 (2010)
16-6-2. Sodomy; aggravated sodomy; medical expenses
(a) (1) A person commits the offense of sodomy when he or she performs or submits to any sexual act involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another.
(2) A person commits the offense of aggravated sodomy when he or she commits sodomy with force and against the will of the other person or when he or she commits sodomy with a person who is less than ten years of age. The fact that the person allegedly sodomized is the spouse of a defendant shall not be a defense to a charge of aggravated sodomy.
(b) (1) Except as provided in subsection (d) of this Code section, a person convicted of the offense of sodomy shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than 20 years and shall be subject to the sentencing and punishment provisions of Code Section 17-10-6.2.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me to keep it on the books given Section (a)(2) and the court’s ruling obviating Section (a)(1) as to consenting adults. Maybe some depraved people do want it off the books, though.
Sodomy is still a crime according to the Georgia statute and punishable with one to 20 years’ incarceration. The statute could have been amended after the Georgia Supreme Court ruled 16-6-2(a)(1) unconstitutional under the state constitution nearly two decades ago. This language hasn’t been repealed.
It makes Appleton’s point that many laws (e.g., racially-restrictive property laws) were kept on the books to continue a legislated public policy, even though federal and/or state case law has rendered it unenforceable. An example of such case law is Buchanan v. Warley (1917) [SCOTUS declared unconstitutional a statute forbidding a “white person” to move into a block where the greater number of residences were occupied by “colored persons” and forbidding a “colored person” to move into a block where the greater number of residences were occupied by “white persons”]. During real estate transactions, an intentional failure to redact anti-alienation language passes scrutiny at the recorder’s office because the clerk isn’t a lawyer and refers to statutory law, not case law, when there’s a discrepancy.
Another example is when Justice Roger Traynor’s 1948 Perez v. Sharp opinion held for the first time that marriage is a fundamental right under due process (the two statutes were too vague and uncertain) and equal protection grounds, at least in California, under the 14th Amendment and voided California Civil Code sections 60 and 69.
The LA County Clerk had refused to issue a marriage license to a white woman and an African-American man based on Civil Code sections 60 and 69.
Section 60: “All marriages of white persons with Negroes, Mongolians, members of the Malay race, or mulattoes are illegal and void.” Section 69 (which implements section 60), “[N]o license may be issued authorizing the marriage of a white person with a Negro, mulatto, Mongolian or member of the Malay race.”
Sections 60 and 69 weren’t repealed until 1992, 44 years after Traynor’s opinion which was in part affirmed by SCOTUS in its 1967 opinion in Loving v. Virginia, and it’s easy to see why there was a delay.
For you to say the Georgia statute “seems perfectly reasonable to” you tells more about you than it does the statute.
It tells me you have no idea what I said.
M. Appleton: “Equal educational opportunity needs to be guaranteed from early childhood, and paid for by public funds. It isn’t.” no truer words written as far as public education. I see my family members and friends who have to make sure they are living in the right zip code so their kids get decent schooling.. Pathetic. Diane Ravitz, formerly pro charter schools advocate lays it out:
Autumn,
I agree with you and Mike. This would be the best answer.
I see so many kids who are really gifted and they can’t get anywhere. These are kids who are hungry during the day. There are many other issues to deal with. As adults, I also see extremely gifted people who did not have good educations available to them. They are amazing people! I’d like to see them get all the help and support they need so they could catch up on their missing education.
Our society needs the talents of these people. We are missing so much talent by their absence.
but compensation for exacting hundreds of years of productive labor from a race of people is not an absurd notion.
About 1/2 the slaves imported into this country were so after 1780, so it’s more along the lines of 85 years of productive labor. And, of course, what was exacted was the difference between market wages and the cost of the slave’s sustenance.
You’re neglecting the other half of the equation, which is the benefit the quondam slave have derived from living here since 1865. Keith Richburg, formerly of the Washington Post has written on this issue. Our ancestors may have been b*****ds, but they provided a satisfactory matrix in which blacks could develop their human capital. You can see a few examples of what might have been without that matrix (Liberia and Haiti to name two).
Mike A., the concept of “40 acres and a mule” was not solely restitutionary in nature. Thomas Jefferson proposed 50 acres to every free man as a constitutional right in 1776. Such had nothing to do with restitution for slavery, but with opportunity for the poor in a largely agrarian society to forge a life for himself. Such requires hard work from the one receiving the land to make it profitable. As a result, not everyone accepted offers of free land. Today, governments have a huge surplus of land, but instead of giving any of it away to poor citizens to make a life for themselves, the government turns them into protected parks.
As for the problem of racial segregation, it is far too simplistic to claim that racist laws solely are at fault. The truth is that human nature is such that the individuals of different cultures naturally segregate. The culture might be based upon race, economics, or religion, but the segregation based upon it is quite natural and not at all with nefarious intentions. Completely abolish racially motivated laws, and racial segregation will still happen. Many cities naturally develop ghettos, homeless populations who hang together, predominately black neighborhoods, white wealthy people move to the suburbs, the chinese congregate in chinatown, and Koreans congregate in koreantown. Even the old city of Jerusalem (the city of peace) has its four quarters: Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Armenian. Look at Dearborn, Michigan and the concentration of Muslims there. Was that the result of nefarious racist laws on the books? I don’t think so.
Paterson, NJ has the second largest Muslim population of any city in the U.S., following Dearborn. But even the Muslims segregate themselves by country of origin. They have the Arab section, the Turkish section (“Little Istanbul”), a different neighborhood for Indonesian Muslims, and the Palestinian neighborhood. It’s just human nature for people to congregate with people of similar backgrounds.
Tin, Metro Detroit Muslims also tend to congregate by country of origin …………. as did Christian in the 19th century. We still have not learned we cannot legislate morals or emotions.
Also, if you look at a map of the Detroit Metro, you see there is proximity to automotive plants.
And, in a related note, what low opinions these activist students must have about their African-American fellows. Are the black students unable, by immutable characteristic, unable to compete on a level playing field? How insulting for those kid? How racist for their paternalistic snowflake “protectors”?
I agree. And I might add that constantly being told “you are a victim” continually is a form of harm to those that constantly hear it. Imagine how a young child would feel if they are continually told “you’ll never make it because you are a girl, and have blue eyes”. On one side society tells adults to raise their children to believe in themselves and provide them with confidence and that they can be what they want to be but with many on the left they tell minorities the opposite of these kind of messages and it is labeled as being inclusive and helping minorities.
The left truly needs to stop telling minorities they are victims and because of their skin color, they are being repressed by “the man” and whites. How can people develop self-worth when a large segment of our society is convinced minorities will never be equal? But there are plenty of charlatans who can make political advantage for themselves or wealth as long as there is a perpetuation of telling millions of people they are victims, incapable of improving their lot in life, and these charlatans are the only ones who can come to their rescue. True equality becomes difficult to achieve.
Ironically, it’s the exact same mentality of the 19th Century sale owner. My how far we’ve come, Darren. They should let me talk to those kids.
“Slaveowner”
And I might add that constantly being told “you are a victim”
There are people in this world with a vocational and ideological interest in something sterile. Tim Wise, to name one fairly gross example. The diversitocracy to name another. Not much to be done about that but two things: state legislation which removes these cretins from the payroll at state colleges and universities, and federal legislation which removes pressure on higher education and corporate HR to hire them. The simplest thing to do is to eliminate anti-discrimination law applicable to the private sector and require in the public sector that recruitment and promotion int he civil service will be by timely examination. If the federal courts try to impose their own preferences, federal legislation stripping them of jurisdiction should be the order of the day.
I think students are students for a reason. Then they get educated. Then they go to work. Then some obtain wisdom. The Wisconsin students are a stage one.
No they are at Stage Two Snowflake Dystopia a DSM5 diagnosis which can get one on total disability due to brain dysfunction. They think, therefore they are! They are! Therefore they stink. They think their feces don’t stink. Therefore they live free or die. And they do not live in New Hampshire.
The snowflakes have returned to their true roots gimmee, gimmee, gimmee
“demands free tuition for black students”
That’s racist.
If you told an Asian that they must be given a college degree for free and never take any tests for no other reason than they were Asian, they would be insulted.
As should any person.
We already have scholarships.
My Russian ancestors may have been serfs(AKA slaves), and since they were Jews, their ancestors may have been held captive in Egypt; therefore, I am entitled to reparations for those situations. I’m more than a little ticked off. Where my money. Not Rubles or Egyptian pounds, either. I want the BIG Bucks – the Billy Graham kind of money.
WHERE MY MONEY?
Bill,
Do you suffer from Post Traumatic Serf Disorder?