Yep, basically.
Black people (and to a lesser extent Latino people) still trail white people in measures of wealth and educational attainment by a significant margin. This isn’t accidental; systems of structural inequality in the United States have persisted for hundreds of years up to this very day, disenfranchising minorities, siphoning their wealth away, and preventing them from accruing more.
Yet attempting to address the problem where it exists – in targeting structural racism by directly aiding the communities most-affected by racist policies – routinely results in white people claiming that actually racism is real, but only against white people. The way white people benefit from systems of racism and exclusion are totally invisible to them by design.
While affirmative action is not perfect, throwing the baby out with the bathwater will hurt the must vulnerable Americans even more. This is a very sad day for the United States in particular and the idea of racial equality in general.
Why not change admissions to focus more on accepting lower income students? Wouldn’t that fix the entire problem?
No, because the problem being solved is the racial wealth gap. If you want to solve the problem of the racial wealth gap, you have to solve… that problem, not some other problem.
It seems like accepting lower income people would fix that problem then. On average, college graduates make more than nongraduates. So getting lower income kids admitted will fix that problem.
No, accepting more Black people would fix the problem, since not enough Black people being accepted into colleges is the problem. Not sure why everyone is recommending that their pet problem be fixed instead of the actual problem.
You’re creating a problem by discriminating based on race. If the goal is to break the poverty cycle, which is what it’s been stated as being, then targeting lower income individuals would fix that problem.
The racial wealth gap and educational gap is the problem, as stated in @Veraticus@lib.lgbt op. Apparently you didn’t read that part.
I’m not creating a problem by discriminating on race; we’re fixing a problem by discriminating on race.
Discrimination based on race is real and has existed for hundreds of years. Slavery, Jim Crow, reconstruction, red-lining, leaded paint… all of these were targeted by race, not by income. Pretending we can fix the enormous (and on-going) disenfranchisement of Black people by not targeting them is simply naïve.
My goal here is not to break the poverty cycle, though I obviously want less poverty. My goal (and the goal of affirmative action) is to fix the problem of racial wealth and educational inequality. Those are separate problems from poverty that must be targeted for fixing in exactly the same manner they were targeted in creation – by race.
You can’t fix racism with more racism… That’s the worst take yet.
affirmative action has done more for white women than ANY!!! other demographic but white women are the only “”“minority”“” 🙄 that vote overwhelmingly against their own interests (Republican, just to be clear). have a conversation amongst yourselves #FFF women :)
i wonder what kind of tangible effect this will have overall, given how opaque and discretionary college admissions standards are in the first place. if an institution wanted to, couldn’t class-conscious policies geared towards underrepresented geographies and first generation college students achieve a similar outcome while skirting the ruling on race explicitly?
Companies basically can’t use affirmative action when hiring. But to try to help the racial divide, some strive after diversity. That means changing where they’re recruiting, changing the work environment, changing the hiring process, and investing in change. Some progress has been made, but there’s still a long way to go.
I hope that universities find creative ways to bring in underrepresented minorities. They may not be able to choose based on race anymore, but if they make a bunch of changes (that I’m not smart enough to think of), maybe they can change the makeup of the pool of candidates they’re choosing from.
I think this decision is stupid and not particularly well structured legally. I do hope that it might lead to a better system though, one where schools examine a more appropriate factor instead of race. Race is a useful shortcut, and definitely the best easy identifier we have, to help the people who need the most help and have historically been fucked over, but i do think looking at something like two generational wealth will have the same impact but also include people who are struggling from other races. A more precise system would be ideal. Colleges are already factoring wealth or direct family income, they just need to restructure that approach.
If you think a better system will be created when America is only interested in dismantling systems with no replacement then boy do I have a bridge to sell ya
Speaking as a mediocre white I’m still not thrilled about this ruling.
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Same here. Moved there, then moved back. It’s like wanting to go somewhere because of a picture you saw, then when you get there you find out it smells really bad. America is a terrible place with good marketing.
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funnily enough, i’m not really sure that based on this medicore whites can necessarily rest easier. the university of california system stopped affirmative action policies in the 90s but since then, the white population has actually made losses rather than gains in being admitted to the university of california. for example, for ucla, it looks like the percentage of whites admitted has never gone back to 1995 (during affirmative action) levels. i think the individual implementation of these post-affirmative action policies by the educational establishments seems to be the real make or break here.
^^ This.
it’s hard to have a factual conversation about this. Mediocre ANYONE isn’t getting anywhere near those schools. You have to be at least the top 5% to even be in the conversation in the first place. In fact, due to the concentration of wealth and education in certain class and geographical locations, it’s even harder for the “average” student to be close to the same level as the “exceptional” student.
Now back to affirmative action, all the elite schools still are still heavily gated through non-academic evaluation criteria. Legacy, athletics, and extracurriculars disproportionally benefit upper-class white folks. Even the supreme court decision doesn’t explicitly ban the evaluation of racial impact through personal statements. It remains to be seen how that will impact the racial composition at top schools.
yup exactly!! there seem to be a lot of ways that this information is being oversimplified in misleading ways, especially given how opaque and complicated the college admissions systems already seems in its acceptance factors.
my other thought about all this is that all these talks about class- or race-conscious admissions at the top tier schools are a bit of a red herring… realistically the impact of these policies from a social mobility perspective is going to be much bigger from mid tier/more publicly accessible schools (eg: state schools).
New, creative ideas from cultural exchange and understanding is a result from affirmative action. This is a benefit to all. Not to mention the work of anti-slavery and anti-racism is necessary ethically for a country built on slavery and racism.
I don’t understand why this is a problem. The most qualified candidates should be accepted, regardless of their race - period. Deserving whites shouldn’t get dismissed because a less qualified person of color got that spot. But that’s how it has been in both college acceptance and the workplace. Equality isn’t just for POC - it’s for everyone.
I agree, that’s how it should work, but unfortunately it doesn’t. What happens is that minorities don’t get accepted in no matter how qualified they are because the people reviewing applicants are bigoted.
Also, candidates don’t have a single “power level” representing their worthiness. Among the candidates who are sufficiently qualified, what makes someone more qualified is of great subjectivity. Like, one candidate might have more work experience, but the other gets along with the team better.
Affirmative action wasn’t perfect and was never meant to last forever, but it was good enough for the time being.
The concern isn’t equality, it’s moreso equity. Historically, minorities have suffered systemic efforts that have limited their ability to pursue higher education for a variety of socio-economic reasons. Despite many of those systemic efforts having been thwarted with time, many minority populations’ socio-economic status as a whole still suffers when compared to those of White populations.
These minority populations unquestionably have fewer opportunities (in a multitude of ways) to pursue higher education, and so Affirmative Action helps to destroy some of those barriers and help provide an equitable way to facilitate this – to help level the playing field that’s been dominated by White populations for as long as the country has existed.
Is it a perfect solution? No. Do deserving applicants who would otherwise have been accepted maybe not get their top choice? Yes. But on a population scale, this was probably a good thing. Now we’re back to “equality” which for the past however many years didn’t exist, and the people who were lower before, continue to suffer the consequences.
While I appreciate the anger please consider that “mediocre <ethnicity>” is not a very nice way to phrase this. Also given the recent demographic pole there are many “white” people here who are likely on your side. It particularly hurts when people on your side use language like this.
While I appreciate the anger please consider that “mediocre <ethnicity>” is not a very nice way to phrase this.
They are using the original title of the article. As per the sidebar rules - “Preserve the original title when possible.”
Also given the recent demographic pole there are many “white” people here who are likely on your side. It particularly hurts when people on your side use language like this.
To be honest, I don’t find this phrasing nearly as harmful as people of color being told for decades that they weren’t as qualified or deserving to be admitted into Ivy League schools compared to white applicants and that the only reason they were “allowed” is because of their race. Nor does it really compare to the harm caused by decades of subjugation, discrimination, and generational wealth disparity.
I’m pretty oversensitive to tone because I’ve never been faced with discrimination or bullying in my life despite being a queer autistic Asian female. I was ignored. So I never had to “toughen up” to ribbing let alone nasty tones borne of frustration with discrimination. And man does “mediocre whites” bother me a good deal. I do not blame OP though, it’s just the original title and using it is part of the rules. I’m probably an anomaly and everyone else with my demographic uses this language because they’ve had to deal with more crap from majority identities than I have. But I still really do not like the dismissal and namecalling of anybody based on an uncontrollable part of birth, “punching up” or not. I don’t like punching anybody.
I get why it’s done and don’t want to fight about how I’m the tone police, I know that tendency of myself because of how oversensitive I am. It’ll probably never sit right with me and I honestly think it would be callous of me to sit and make myself comfortable with this. I get why people do it and why this smaller harm is nothing compared to tons of discrimination, but I think I’m allowed to be hurt for others by this too.
This is mostly on me for not blocking Politics, going to go do that right now. Pretty leftist but I know I need to stay away from emotionally-charged political discussions for this very reason. I get really upset about this kind of language even though I understand why it happens and that I “should” be siding with the language users instead of the majority who isn’t exactly being called inferior and subhuman by the title of the post. And objectively, every race has its mediocre people. I know my position can be upsetting to people who just want to vent and expect a safe space for that on Beehaw (I picked Beehaw for its safe space status too) and end up getting pushback that can look really close to “actually this mean wording is worse than the discrimination you experience every day and you have no right to ever be frustrated or less-than-perfectly-diplomatic in your speech.”
If it helps any, I also tone police when I see people talk in a similar way about minorities. Going to go block Politics now so I don’t do this again, but also not deleting this statement because I stand by my feelings about hating punching—up or down.
Didn’t realize it was the original title.
No it doesn’t compare. It can still be hurtful. These aren’t mutually exclusive.
As a mediocre white man living in the midwest, I know who that headline is aimed at and its not me.
It’s aimed at the Faux News consuming mediocre white people. Not the “liberal” white man I am.
My concern is with the words themselves not who they’re aimed at.
As an aside you should never consider yourself mediocre. Good people are far from mediocre.
To the people who think that Affirmative Action was “trying to solve racism with racism”, you are profoundly misunderstanding the purpose of Affirmative Action:
The purpose of Affirmative Action is to solve for the current wealth imbalance that racism created against certain groups.
And how do you get a tilted see-saw to be level? It ain’t by applying equal force on both ends…
So can you call Affirmative Action itself “racism”? If you’re going by the most basic definition that ignores any considerations of systemic power roles like a moron, then sure! In which case, however, you absolutely can solve the effects of prior racism, with “racism”.
I honestly don’t understand why this is so controversial in (what I perceive to be) a left of Liberal space. I’ve always seen Affirmative Action as the embodiment of the old “Conservative vs Liberal” meme:
Conservative: Fuck workers and poor people!
Liberals: Fuck workers and poor people! #BLM 🏳🌈
A though experiment:
A company/university is choosing one from two candidates, named A and B, who are from two different races.
With Affirmative Action: Person A gets the spot.
Without Affirmative Action: Person B gets the spot.
What changed?
Just the demographics. In both cases, one person is still denied a job/education. Instead of fixing the problems with unemployment and lack of education, we just evenly distributed those problems across different races.
In essence, Affirmative Action just tries to hide the problem instead of fixing it; like trying to put a band-aid on cancer.
On a semi related note: race is not even a scientific concept; it is merely a social construct. One which we would do well to get rid of. But among many things, Affirmative Action is one that helps to reinforce it.
Agreed. Affirmative Action was a bad idea, ridden with so many unanswered problems, and shit articles with clickbait titles don’t change that fact. The biggest trick the rich ever pulled was convincing the poor that it’s the other race’s fault. AA actively encouraged that behavior.
The best way to attack systematic racism is to install long-lasting social programs that elevate the poor and disenfranchised. Men, women, whites, PoC, gays, transgenders, etc., etc. all have more in common with each other than they have with rich people.
