> You're talking about a generation of white men who were told growing up that treating people differently based on skin color was the worst thing they could do.
There’s a linguistic sleight of hand that you’re using here that belies your emotional attachment to this topic.
It’s not that “treating people differently based on skin color” was the worst thing, it was that using skin color as a basis for discrimination, harassment, and even violence was the worst thing you could do.
You’re equating these two things:
- giving children who grew up in zip codes with terrible education outcomes a handicap during college admissions
- lynching
… which I find laughably monstrous and points to a convenient ignorance of history
> It’s not that “treating people differently based on skin color” was the worst thing, it was that using skin color as a basis for discrimination
Those are the same thing. "Discrimination" literally means "treating people differently based on skin color." Which is what the universities were doing.
> giving children who grew up in zip codes with terrible education outcomes a handicap during college admissions
That's not what universities were doing. We know that because they said so! In Harvard's brief to the Supreme Court, for example, Harvard argued that it had no "workable race-neutral alternative" that would achieve its goal of "diversity." Harvard.Br.52-53.
What you're describing--"giving children who grew up in zip code with terrible education outcomes a handicap"--is a race-neutral approach that focuses on socioeconomic factors. Harvard told the Supreme Court that such approaches would not work to achieve its goals: To achieve diversity targets without considering race, "Harvard would have to give socioeconomic tips of disproportionate magnitude ... so large that they would 'essentially automatically put[] in any applicant ... with an average probability of admission.'" Harvard.Br.53.
> What you're describing--"giving children who grew up in zip code with terrible education outcomes a handicap"--is a race-neutral approach that focuses on socioeconomic factors.
Well you also conveniently ignore that it would be an instant victim of Goodhart’s law. There are few, if any, race neutral approaches that can’t be gamed - and the only motivation for such approaches is to satisfy those who are so fervently against the idea of affirmative action. In fact, whenever such approaches are attempted, we see that the rich continue to game the system and the expense of the lower middle class (see Lori Laughlin), so it’s really just the stupid rich kids who benefit the most from “merit-based” admissions, not some humble, poor, but brilliant, child of the wrong race.
Did you go to school in the US? There’s absolutely no shortage of educational opportunities. I’m not sure why you’re arguing about Harvard. It impacts such a small percentage of the population. It’s also hilariously one of the institutions most mired by legacy admissions and admissions based on donations. Maybe use the California system instead?
Edit: also I’m not going to get in some autistic Twitter debate about what “discrimination” means. It’s convenient for those opposed to systems and regulations that benefit an oppressed people that anything not immaculately meritocratic can be described as “discriminatory”. Am I “discriminating” against my child Peter when I give his brother Paul a cookie because his other brother Pedro stole Paul’s cookie at lunch?
Zip codes with terrible education outcomes are almost certainly proxies for zip codes with lots of black and hispanic students living in them. The fact that race correlates highly with zip code is why it is illegal under laws banning racial discrimination in financial services for banks and other loan-granting financial service companies to use zip code data as an input for computing the likelihood that a borrower will repay their loan. And if it's reasonable to legally ban moneylenders from looking at zip code data to determine likelihood of paying back a loan because it's a good proxy for race, it's reasonable to ban colleges from using it as a reason to give a handicap to college admissions for the same reason.
Centuries of discrimination against whole populations (women, non-whites) and I'm supposed to get bent out of shape that a university is preferring to admit people of those discriminated groups?
Given all the other advantages my male whiteness has benefited me, I think I can look past that.
(Not willfully blind, just keeping everything in perspective.)
> Centuries of discrimination against whole populations (women, non-whites) and I'm supposed to get bent out of shape that a university is preferring to admit people of those discriminated groups?
Yes, not because you’re white, but because as a citizen you have a moral obligation to help ensure that our institutions treat citizens as individuals, not as “groups.” Individuals living today shouldn’t be treated as if they personally suffered that discrimination by grouping them together based on skin color with people in the past who did. That doesn’t mean ignoring the effects of past discrimination. But those effects are baked into people’s individual circumstances and can be evaluated in those terms. Rich people should be treated alike morally and poor people should be treated alike morally regardless of the individual path dependency that led them both to the same place.
You can’t have your group identity cake and eat it too. I can’t demand better treatment than a similarly situated white person because other Bangladeshis are poor. I’m not them any more than you are them. Conversely, it’s wrong to discriminate against my wife’s poor white extended family members because other white people are rich. My kids go to private school with WASPs, some of whom definitely have slave owner legacy money. My wife’s family aren’t those people, and it’s racism to arbitrarily group them together.
> You're talking about a generation of white men who were told growing up that treating people differently based on skin color was the worst thing they could do.
There’s a linguistic sleight of hand that you’re using here that belies your emotional attachment to this topic.
It’s not that “treating people differently based on skin color” was the worst thing, it was that using skin color as a basis for discrimination, harassment, and even violence was the worst thing you could do.
You’re equating these two things:
… which I find laughably monstrous and points to a convenient ignorance of history
> It’s not that “treating people differently based on skin color” was the worst thing, it was that using skin color as a basis for discrimination
Those are the same thing. "Discrimination" literally means "treating people differently based on skin color." Which is what the universities were doing.
> giving children who grew up in zip codes with terrible education outcomes a handicap during college admissions
That's not what universities were doing. We know that because they said so! In Harvard's brief to the Supreme Court, for example, Harvard argued that it had no "workable race-neutral alternative" that would achieve its goal of "diversity." Harvard.Br.52-53.
What you're describing--"giving children who grew up in zip code with terrible education outcomes a handicap"--is a race-neutral approach that focuses on socioeconomic factors. Harvard told the Supreme Court that such approaches would not work to achieve its goals: To achieve diversity targets without considering race, "Harvard would have to give socioeconomic tips of disproportionate magnitude ... so large that they would 'essentially automatically put[] in any applicant ... with an average probability of admission.'" Harvard.Br.53.
> What you're describing--"giving children who grew up in zip code with terrible education outcomes a handicap"--is a race-neutral approach that focuses on socioeconomic factors.
Well you also conveniently ignore that it would be an instant victim of Goodhart’s law. There are few, if any, race neutral approaches that can’t be gamed - and the only motivation for such approaches is to satisfy those who are so fervently against the idea of affirmative action. In fact, whenever such approaches are attempted, we see that the rich continue to game the system and the expense of the lower middle class (see Lori Laughlin), so it’s really just the stupid rich kids who benefit the most from “merit-based” admissions, not some humble, poor, but brilliant, child of the wrong race.
Did you go to school in the US? There’s absolutely no shortage of educational opportunities. I’m not sure why you’re arguing about Harvard. It impacts such a small percentage of the population. It’s also hilariously one of the institutions most mired by legacy admissions and admissions based on donations. Maybe use the California system instead?
Edit: also I’m not going to get in some autistic Twitter debate about what “discrimination” means. It’s convenient for those opposed to systems and regulations that benefit an oppressed people that anything not immaculately meritocratic can be described as “discriminatory”. Am I “discriminating” against my child Peter when I give his brother Paul a cookie because his other brother Pedro stole Paul’s cookie at lunch?
2 replies →
Zip codes with terrible education outcomes are almost certainly proxies for zip codes with lots of black and hispanic students living in them. The fact that race correlates highly with zip code is why it is illegal under laws banning racial discrimination in financial services for banks and other loan-granting financial service companies to use zip code data as an input for computing the likelihood that a borrower will repay their loan. And if it's reasonable to legally ban moneylenders from looking at zip code data to determine likelihood of paying back a loan because it's a good proxy for race, it's reasonable to ban colleges from using it as a reason to give a handicap to college admissions for the same reason.
Centuries of discrimination against whole populations (women, non-whites) and I'm supposed to get bent out of shape that a university is preferring to admit people of those discriminated groups?
Given all the other advantages my male whiteness has benefited me, I think I can look past that.
(Not willfully blind, just keeping everything in perspective.)
> Centuries of discrimination against whole populations (women, non-whites) and I'm supposed to get bent out of shape that a university is preferring to admit people of those discriminated groups?
Yes, not because you’re white, but because as a citizen you have a moral obligation to help ensure that our institutions treat citizens as individuals, not as “groups.” Individuals living today shouldn’t be treated as if they personally suffered that discrimination by grouping them together based on skin color with people in the past who did. That doesn’t mean ignoring the effects of past discrimination. But those effects are baked into people’s individual circumstances and can be evaluated in those terms. Rich people should be treated alike morally and poor people should be treated alike morally regardless of the individual path dependency that led them both to the same place.
You can’t have your group identity cake and eat it too. I can’t demand better treatment than a similarly situated white person because other Bangladeshis are poor. I’m not them any more than you are them. Conversely, it’s wrong to discriminate against my wife’s poor white extended family members because other white people are rich. My kids go to private school with WASPs, some of whom definitely have slave owner legacy money. My wife’s family aren’t those people, and it’s racism to arbitrarily group them together.
He was talking about the opinion of other white men, not Bangladeshis angry on our behalf
Why is a Bangladeshi not capable of empathizing with and articulating how a white person would feel under given circumstances?