I "Clipped" this section of an article from Reason, John, because it quotes your "Bible" as confirming the grade gap in the colleges between white and black. And uses it to show the Author's condescension toward blacks.
Do preferential admissions contribute to these tensions? John McWhorter, an African-American writer and the author of "Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America," believes so. "Black students often suspect that white students feel that they got in through affirmative action, which they often did," McWhorter says. "One way to reduce balkanization would be if black students all got into school for the same reason as everybody else."
McWhorter also believes that racial preferences help perpetuate the very gap in scholastic achievement that they are meant to make up for. Blacks and Hispanics get the insidious message that not much is expected of them. (In their 1998 book, The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions, William Bowen and Derek Bok, former presidents of Princeton and Harvard, respectively, declare that the performance of minority students admitted to top schools due to affirmative action cannot be considered "disappointing",despite a large racial gap in grades.) In McWhorter's view, this subtle message reinforces the tendency among African-Americans to regard achievement in school as "acting white."
reason.com |
