Under funded schools occur in poor school districts that are inhabited by poor people, many of whom are black. The conditions that you attribute to systematic racism are actually due merely to poverty.

Unfortunately, the minds of a significant fraction of the population of American blacks are running a poverty-inducing program, which I’ll call the Under-Class Program, or UCP for short. When you’re running UCP, the idea that you will escape poverty and become bourgeois by adopting traditional bourgeois virtues — industriousness, perseverance, punctuality, courtesy, studiousness, ambition, articulation, abstemiousness, decorum, delayed gratification, honesty, chastity, diligence, etc. — strikes you as absurd and undesirable.

While I think there is negligible discrimination against people for being black, I also think that there is widespread discrimination against those who are UCP hosts. Because there’s a large intersection between these groups, anti-UCP bias is often confused with racism. White UCP hosts — evidenced by, say, tattoos from head to toe — are also heavily discriminated against.

How did George W. get into Yale?

I think Phillip’s post said it best. Racism is systematic in a way that being fat/ugly/etc just isn’t. I could give a list of questions about which is the best predictor of going to an underfunded school, of getting a harsher sentence for a first-time drug offense, or of being stopped by a cop for no apparent reason. The answer to all of those questions would be “f) being black.”

It’s unfair and it sucks, and the first step in fixing the problem is admitting that we (as a society) have one.

So what if less qualified members of minorities are given certain advantages just because they’re a different ethnicity? Many people agree it’s a healthy double-standard since minorities are at an inherent disadvantage due to the color of their skin. I mean, it’s because more talented minority wouldn’t get the job because the racist white boss (because all white people are racist and only white people hold positions of power) would prefer one of his own kind, right?

And of course, all white people are just one race. There can’t be any discrimination between those ethnicities. Let’s just ignore that problem altogether.

Sure. But is it a greater impact than that of anti-fat prejudice and the other common forms of discrimination? It isn’t.

Re: polls — It helps to remember that a majority also believe in angels or astrology.

Maybe we should take our own poll:

1. You’re looking for a job. Which of the following would in general hurt your chance the least?

a) being old
b) being fat
c) being ugly
d) being stupid
e) being short
f) being black

2. You’re trying to get a date. Which of the following would in general hurt your chance the least?

a) being old
b) being fat
c) being ugly
d) being stupid
e) being short
f) being black

“Systematic” is the key word here. When Belezian compares the (very real) discrimination that short, fat, or ugly people face to the discrimination that blacks face, he’s comparing apples and oranges. There are no public schools in the US where there are no playgrounds, where the bathrooms don’t work, where there is no air-conditioning in the summer or heat in the winter, where the classrooms are overcrowded but there are no textbooks, where a majority of the teachers are relatively inexperienced and are teaching on emergency credentials–and where 95% of the students are short. There are tens of thousands of public schools in the US where these conditions apply–and where an overwhelming majority of the students are black.

Please read Jonathan Kozol, “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid,” Harper’s, September 2005 (41-54).

Thanks for your comments. I think my main point was that for many people in this country, racism is still a “big deal”. And I don’t think it is just coming from Yacht Clubs and neo-Nazis, it is more of a structural problem.

I think the fact that black folks would have to change their name to something more white-sounding in order to compete in the job market is a pretty powerful testament to the harm that racism works in their lives. Just because people have strategies for competing and surviving does not make it OK. I doubt that discrimination in hiring is “readily circumvented”. Getting a callback is only the first step in the process.

I don’t know what types of names “most blacks” do or don’t have, but I would suspect that most blacks would disagree with your statement about “easily living their whole lives without personally detecting racial discrimination.” I believe polls have consistently shown that many black people say racial discrimination is still powerful in this country. Here’s a recent (although Katrina-specific) poll, if you’re interested.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-09-12-katrina-poll_x.htm

Obviously, class factors into all of this, but IMHO racism still has an impact in this country. The hiring study doesn’t even address the racial disparities in the criminal justice system or in basic educational funding, both of which are considerable, systematic and destructive.

ANON has already responded to Lubos’ link (comment 68). But did no-one mention that Haelfix’s link (from comment 32) bears no relationship to his conclusion?

Or was Haelfix choosing to *agree* with Sean? The substantive content of the link certainly seemed to indicate that Sean was right: “clunky, but (seems to) work.”

This would leave Haelfix’s personal taste in students to be just that, and as Sean pointed out, I would be very leery of trusting my grade to an instructor like that.

On a side note, Haelfix: I’ve noticed that many of the “American-speaking” students who have initially struggled in my courses turned out not to be American-educated (or often American) at all, but rather foreign-educated. Seems that learning how to write or do exposition, the coherent expression of ideas, in a foreign country does not necessarily train one to do it well in the United States. I’m just glad that I was able to realize this before I came to the conclusion that they were just ‘incompetent students’ or “AA babies,” who clearly shouldn’t be in the university what with their substandard academic skills and inability to think.

Please use Gricean principles to extrapolate to topic at hand.

I ask that Haelfix don’t feel persecuted simply because others (myself included) think you’re giving off the distinct impression of being both a bigot and a moron, though. I hope Haelfix is being misunderstood — after all, I’d hate to think that a fellow teacher was being so aggressively and proactively blinkered and close-minded.

As I wrote before, racism continues to exist but it is now well exceeded by other common forms of discrimination. Being fat, ugly, short, or stupid is a much greater obstacle to employment than is being black.

Moreover, Laquisha and Jamal can simply change their first names on their resumes or use their initials. Name changing for economic and social advancement is hardly unknown in the U.S. It was a common practice, for example, in the entertainment industry (e.g. Crackor Ohanian –> Mike Connors).

In a similar vein, socially ambitious residents of Brooklyn and the Bronx invested heavily diction lessons to escape discrimination on the basis of their their annoying accents.

Fortunately, most blacks do not have “black-sounding” names and are not subject to the particular form of (readily circumvented) discrimination that you cite. They can easily live their whole lives without personally detecting racial discrimination directed against them. [They will, however, experience misguided discrimination intended to help them.]

Again, this is not to say that discrimination no longer exists. I would probably not be welcomed into The Billionaire Yacht Club of the Hamptons. I would probably have a hard time getting an Idaho Neo-Nazi chick to date me. But this is hardly the sort of thing that I’m going to notice. It is, moreover, a blessing in that I’m not particularly interested in socializing with bigots. [Unless, of course, the Nazi chick is exceedingly hot.]

Belizean, I respectfully disagree on this point. Here is a link to a description of a study about racial disparities in hiring. The researchers sought to determine if a “black-sounding” name would fare as well in the job market as a “white-sounding” name. So they sent out something like 5000 resumes and they determined that a white-sounding name was 50 percent more likely to get a callback, the equivalent of about eight years job experience. The study isn’t perfect, but it is clear and simple, and unfortunately, uncovers what I would say is “detectable racism” with a big impact on people’s lives.

For your review:

Supreme Court Decisions: On June 23, 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court finally issued its much awaited decisions in these two cases. The Court issued its Grutter decision first–a 5-4 decision written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. In it the Court endorsed Justice Powell’s decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, finding diversity in higher education to be a compelling state interest and upholding the law school admissions program. The Court noted the individuality of the review in the law school, and held that race can be considered as a “plus” factor in admissions if it is considered in the context of a “highly individualized, holistic review of each applicant’s file, giving serious consideration to all the ways an applicant might contribute to a diverse educational environment.”

At SIU it isn’t even admissions it is fellowships which follow admissions.

Regards,

Elliot

Elliot

There is no compelling case for racism in the Katrina response. The response was consistent past relief efforts. For example, boots were on the ground 5 days after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, but they were on the ground 3 days after Katrina.

The only possible argument for racisim stems from the road blocks set up by the sheriffs of surrounding parishes and counties. Their objective was to keep New Orlean’s looters and other criminals out of their jurisdictions. The overwhelming majority of these criminals are black.

Had Katrina solely ravaged a posh suburb known to the inhabited by wealthy blacks, no one would have feared these wealthy people taking refuge in their counties.

It is now very easy to live one’s entire life as a black person in the United States without experiencing a single incident of detectable racism (other than attempts to grant one special privileges).

I refer you to the recent response to Hurricane Katrina (though that, too, is a class issue as well as a racial one).

Sean’s point regarding legacy admissions is right on the mark, so much so that Regents and Trustees at various universities are encouraging reviews of the policies to reduce the number of such “automatic” admissions. It is simply bad business to encourage rich students to attend schools like Yale where they only strive to achieve the C- grades necessary to not get thrown out. For the record legacy appointments also occur at the various military academies as well.

Recent studies of schools and districts funded through increased contributions from their associated “foundations” record significantly better achievement scoring. There is a direct correlation to familial wealth within those communities. Poverty, regardless of race/color/gender, is the most significant factor in determining and predicting outcome on varous achievement testing. Affirmative Action in any form, while being strikingly beneficial for some over the last 40 years, cannot begin to address the dramatic increase in the discrepency between the richest and poorest in this country. Funding higher education is becoming increasingly more expensive (here or abroad), student loan dollars are shrinking both as in what is totally available as well as in how much more per student must be used, fewer and fewer families can support fulltime attendance at four year universities and colleges. We need dramatic tuition support, more scholarships, more foundation funding. All of these can be “discriminatory” as they are private, and yet can target increasing the opportunities for poor students of color, race, and gender to attend universities and colleges of their choice.

Have not the 2004 elections sufficiently demonstrated that Bush is a better candidate than the left-wing candidates?

Wow, I never knew that the popular vote/opinion decides who the “better candidate” is. But let’s assume that it does. Now, check out Bush’s latest approval ratings.

“We have every reason to believe that talent is distributed evenly across race and gender. If, in the outcome, the diversity of society is not represented in the pool of those employed, you are wasting talent.”

Dear catowner, we have absolutely no reason to think so. On the contrary, we have now hundreds of reasons to be convinced that your statement is incorrect. See, for example, here.

Lubos, you posted a Scientific American article about the various differences between male and female brains. The article also makes a clear point: “To date, no one has uncovered any evidence that anatomical disparities might render women incapable of achieving academic distinction in math, physics or engineering…”

So I’m not sure why you used this article to refute serial catowner. Saying that there are differences among the races or genders is not profound. It remains to be seen whether these differences significantly affect overall performance in some field.

You say there’s absolutely no reason to think that talent is evenly distributed across race and gender. I just can’t take you seriously if you are concluding that from e.g. this article.

You are probably right. No point replaying the 2000 election as Bush stole it fair and square. We could discuss Katherine Harris, the deliberate disenfranchisement of black voters through misidentifying them as felons, well documented threats against black voters in Miami, the unfortuate Buchanan incident is WPB, but there is no going back and changing it now. Scalia paid daddy back for his seat and that is that. Which is why I hope the Democratic Senate does everything possible to keep Alito off the court so we can avoid a replay in the future.

As for the SIU case, I don’t think that suggesting that diversity is a good thing and supporting programs that encourage it constitutes an “ugly statement”. You still have not explained why providing financial aid to an underrepresented class is the equivalent of giving that specific class admission slots (affirmative action). And even if it were AA, that does not make it illegal.

Still waiting for your legal credentials. I have a J. D from University of Miami 1978.

Cheers,

Elliot