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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (159809)	2/3/2003 6:36:38 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1579697

But it isn't faulty. Its totally faulty. No......you're reasoning is faulty, not their's. We could keep that up for months but what would be the point of that. They did but you don't want to see it. No Ted, what they did was show something else that they consider connected to that but they did not show it directly. If someone has a poor elementary education, its very likely they will not do well in middle and h.s. school, and probably will not do well on their SATs. Therefore, getting points for being a minority will not save them or give them an advantage It will give them an advantage. That advantage could be smaller, possibly much smaller then other disadvantages that they might have but it is still an advantage. An advantage is a beneficial factor. You make it seem like the only thing that counts is their racial makeup or gender. The truth is is its a very small part of the total evaluation process. Ifyou count it at all you are discriminating based on race. If a university gave white students 20 bonus points out of 160 total points, for their skin color, I doubt you, or the NAACP would figure that it was ok because it is only a smalle part of the total evaluation process. Unfortunately, for conservatives, that small advantage seems to stick in their craw.......why? Because it is unjust, produces negative results, and is an example of treating people primarily as a member or a race or other group rather then as an individual. I can't understand why power hungry liberals would want to devide people into groups competing for benefits but I can't understand why well intentioned liberals, and I have no reason to consider you anything but well intentioned, would support such a thing. And if you were black and team selection was subject to AA that wouldn't change anything......you still wouldn't get on the team. You are not good b-ball material whether you are black or white. Of course I am further away from being good material for the NBA then students admited under AA are from being highly qualifed students but the difference is one of degree only. AA or not the students with lower grades and test scores, who get in because of bonus points are less qualifed just as I am less qualified to play center for the LA Lakers then Shaq is. And what if I was better at basketball. What if I was a solid college player and was 10 or 15 years younger. What if I had the talent to play in Europe or in American minor leagues (does the CBA still exist?), and almost enough to play in the NBA but not quite. Should the NBA give me a spot anyway because it is 90% black and blacks only make up about 12% of the population? If you believe that people should be propotionatly represented in different schools or places of employment it would seem to me that under those circumstance I should get the job, but it would be wrong to take the job away from someone who is better at basketball then I am, just because he is black and I am white. They are not necessarily more qualified.........however, the power had been and continues to be mainly in their hands. Therefore, they have an inherent advantage over everyone else. That's a little vauge. My point was that if whites are more qualified in a particular area then they should get the majority of the spots even as black people get most of the jobs in the NBA and a disproportionate share in the NFL and major league baseball. Whites are not more powerful. Specific people are more powerful. Many of those people are white but being white doesn't give you power or special advantage. There are powerful rich whites and and poor or powerless whites, the same goes for blacks or people of any other ethnic group. I don't gain a big advantage just because the richest person in the US, and the president of the US are both white. Racism is when the power resides in one group's hand and that group refuses to share in that power or to allow non members to even participate. White people are not a group. Something that helps some other white person doesn't help me or hurt black people in general. White people, black people, whatever, we are all individuals. Also few places refuse to let black people participate and in most cases doing so is illegal. You want "over time" to mean 4 decades; in this case, given the extent of the damage, "over time" may mean a century. Maybe more then a century. But the only way to get it started is to start treating people as people rather then as members of a race. The more race consious we are when we give out benefits or demerits the more people will think in terms of groups and "us vs them". Maybe slightly.........a black may get 580 on his/her SATs and the white person gets a 630. Sometimes, there's a difference but not huge........and the operative word is 'sometimes'. If you are giving special bonuses or quotas then you are lowering the bar. If you are not but rather just trying hard to recruite qualified minorities then I don't have a problem with what you are doing. Again, the advantage is not that big. Which makes it a smaller wrong but it is still wrong. And sometimes it is pretty big. In some cases qualifications that would mean automatic admission for a black person don't meet the minimum standards for admission for whites. The bar was lowered for GW and that didn't bring Yale down Do you know this for a fact, or are you just giving him a gratuitious slap? In any case I've allready said I am willing to do away with bonuses for children of alumni (but I think it would be wrong to actually force private institutions to get rid of them through the force of law, but protest and lobbying would be fine). AA is the teeth of Civil Rts. laws and was spawned by those laws. They had teeth even without AA in many cases. Also some of the laws would seem to directly outlaw AA. Others where passed with the understanding of those who voted for them that they would not cause AA. For that matter not all the spawn of good things are themselves good. Which doesn't answer my point at all. If they are closing the gap it could be for reasons other then AA. What reason? I didn't say they where. I laid out all the posibilities together. Either they are for other reasons, or your earlier statement about AA is untrue. But other reasons are, affirmitive action laws that don't include AA, the work of black people to better themselves and the work of all people to combat discrimination. For that matter there would be many indirect factors that would help determine the absolute or realtive wealth and power of different races. Well, let me tell you, the "catch up" process has just begun. No it began in the 1800s. Not at all. It is hireing people you know or like, or who are known or liked by people you like. AKA racism....... No Ted. If I hire a friend and both of us are white that is not racism, even if I hired him because he was a friend rather then because of objective criteria. Racism in hiring would be if I hired him because of his race. (or refused to hire because of someone's race). But it was based on race.. No in many cases it was not. As for the other cases I said "it could be combined with racism". The desire to hire friends is not based on race. Racists might also desire to hire their freinds but the two motivations (desire to hire friends and desire not to hire from some racial group) are seperate things. AA is a tool legislated by law that's been implemented in an attempt to mitigate the harsh results of sometimes centuries of racism. It is not racism no matter how many times you say it. Even if it is a tool to combat centuries of racism and even if it were an effective and useful tool with little negative consequences it would still be racism. Its the very definition of racism. Similarly you might use violence to combat violent attacks from someone else. The violence might be justified but it is still violence. Racism is discrimination or prejudice based on race. Discrimination is defined as " Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice: racial discrimination; discrimination against foreigners." So racism is treatment or consideration based on race rather then individual merit. Affirmative action is treatment or consideration based on race rather then individual merit. A=B, B=C, therefore A=C. Hold onto that ideal......we may get there eventually. Only by actually practicing it. Tim