I don’t do such large quotes often, so bare with me on the bullets in the order of which you wrote.
-Again, this discussion is not about Affirmative Action, you seem to confuse the “URM advantage” with Affirmative Action through and through. There is no set quota of blacks, Mexicans, Native Americans or otherwise that are accepted each year. The advantage is in the forgiveness of lower stats, not even dividing further among HBCUs and Puerto Ricans schools, which take the largest numbers of minorities at the lowest stat levels. But you brought up Affirmative Action so I addressed it. As I said before no one has said AA is the most just policy to come into existence, and that stands. Simply meaning that it is obviously not perfect, no law is, it attempts to address some issues while creating others, which arguably every law does. My point is no one is declaring that AA is the ultimate answer to the problems institutionalized oppression has created in America. I agree that strides still have to be made; the root problems have to be better addressed. In all honesty, I do not support AA in many ways particularly because it is patchwork. In my opinion AA is a band-aid the US government can put on minorities to say, “there, all better”, as a way to pacify them, instilling the idea that somehow the government is trying it’s best to reach equality. In truth, it is the cheapest means to avoid true equality. True equality does not mean simply that AA goes away and now we all have equal opportunity. Rather it would require the government and all it’s people to ensure those opportunities are equal for all. This would mean changing the educational system, the healthcare system, and the political system, so that no group is unduly disadvantaged. True equality at this point in the game is expensive, and so the government will avoid it like the plague. You can’t say that getting rid of AA makes everything equal because it does not, minority neighborhoods would still be underserved, and their education will still be subpar, what is equal about that? You say that relevant factors such as financial and social environment are ignored. Are we talking about medical school admissions here? Obviously, they are not. But again you get compounded disadvantages with minorities because on average they are more likely to be in the lowest income brackets, live in the most drug and crime stricken neighborhoods and be the victims of abuse. An ORM who is poor and lives in a toxic environment is afforded advantages because there were many obstacles they had to overcome, and many are accepted on this basis. Why does SDN constantly talk about the “hook”, the story, the factors that led to poor grades at whatever point in undergrad? Well because everyone knows for a fact that all these things are taken into account, and it’s readily apparent in school stats. After all, half of the student had to below the average and half above no? What school that isn’t an HBCU has half minority classes?
A fact of a capitalistic society is that everyone will not be on the same level, true, but that is based on economic class that idea is only relevant however if everyone began on the same level to run the same race. This is not the case with minorities in America, when groups were purposely kept down because of their race. All of a sudden are they supposed to be able to run the same race while not receiving the same preparation? They are starting well below the peers, they have the steepest learning curve, and they have the most to overcome. There is inherent inequality because of this nation’s history, you cannot ignore history, the present is a product of it.
-Yes, you did in fact say they perform poorly in medical school. “
can we look into why blacks do so poorly in high school, college and medical school?” Perhaps it was a Freudian slip…
Yes the reason for under-performance have to be addressed, and I have presented you with many underlying factors that require attention. This is a point of discussion, which I was trying to distinguish to you and the other poster because your previous posts took the point of; no such thing as privilege, everyone is equal so admission should be, woefully ignoring that there is a difference in academic success because there is inequality in education itself.
-The comment about targeting blacks was intended for freemontie, the quote is there, where his response said “here is an idea for my black SDN colleagues” etc. There was not specific discussion that led to blacks, he could have chosen to discuss URMs, since the topic is as you put URM advantage, but instead he focused on black members.
-There is a false attribution error, because a false attribution does not mean whether or not external factors play a role in anyone’s existence, it’s the degree to which you attribute internal and external. Here you highly attribute academic success on the individual, as if it was simply that the person chose not to study, and you underestimate the degree to which external factors such as racism, prejudice and oppression plays a role in said individual’s ability to perform. This is, quite obviously, a textbook definition of false attribution error.
-If you think whites or ORMs are not racist, okay sorry but you are simply unaware. I am married to a white man and face racism even with my in-laws. Racism ad the consequences of it is a live and well.
-The education system is racially oppressive because equal opportunities are not afforded to the majority of all races. It is n=1 because you are talking about one school. You claim this is in a low income, minority community, but that that it was free of any sign of racial prejudice, that it gave free tutoring, al the teachers were caring, and it had libraries, and computers for everyone. This is the perfect example of n=1, most low income public schools in minority areas have little or none of this! Are you that naïve to believe that your high school experience is shared across all the public high schools in America?
http://www.apa.org/ed/resources/racial-disparities.pdf
http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/1998/03/spring-education-darling-hammond
The Color Line in American Education is also a great read, I have PDF access but you may be able to find it on Standford’s site.
-You seem to be coming to conclusions that have never been stated, did anyone say people get rejected from medical school because they are black? Yes if you are thinking of medical school you are at the university level now, your disadvantages have been in the road that has brought you there, and that continues to be there in university. At one point you want to discuss AA in its entirety, at the next you want to discuss URM advantage in medical school, you need to be able to discern then, which is applicable to which. Can a black person get denied a job because they are black? Yes, is happens everyday, does that happen in medical school? No, because most mission statements want to make racially inclusive physician population. If there were no URM advantage, or mission to make medicine representative, do you think a qualified applicant that was a minority would get deny admissions? If you think that would never happen you are again UNAWARE. College educated blacks are disproportionately unemployed than their counterparts. The general hiring population has proven time and time again that if the race on an applicants resume is changed with all else being equal, the white or ORM is more likely to get the job than the Hispanic or black candidate. The adcoms, hiring private practices, hospital HRs or what have you are no less prejudice than the general population, the result would be the same. Where did I lose you here?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/weekinreview/06Luo.html?_r=0
http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html
http://selfuni.wordpress.com/2013/1...ds-to-be-white-job-offers-suddenly-skyrocket/
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2009/oct/18/racism-discrimination-employment-undercover
-I do not choose what is merit-based or not. Reading comprehension is useful here. I made an observation of what IS and what IS NOT. Comparing apples to oranges proves nothing because they are not the same. Making medicine a meritocracy would not produce a physician force that most of us would care to see. The more holistic the admissions process is the better physician force will be produced.
-You as a medical student, cannot define what the most important aspect of being a physician is, you are not a physician, so perhaps continue to educate yourself first.
-The point with the fairy god-mother is the fact that you invoked that minorities are “given the opportunity to dominate sports”, no one has said Asians are given the opportunity to dominate medicine, that is seriously illogical. Not sure how you don’t see fallacy in such a statement.
- “If someone is foolish enough to believe that the ghetto is all they can be, then that's his problem.” You are seriously lacking in social competency, yes of course this is a problem, but it only became a problem because of racial oppression. DO you think they just woke up one day and said that is all they can aspire to be? Would you say that someone suffering from Stockholm syndrome should not be helped because that is just his or her problem? The human psyche is a complex thing, and years of reaffirming beliefs that you may think are so obviously “foolish” is not so simple for the person suffering from it is more like a fact of life.
-There is white privilege. Sorry that you are blind to it. Usually those that are privy to it are the ones who don’t see it, but you claim you are discriminated against for being Afghan, yet don’t see any white privilege. What are whites discriminated against for? What negative attributes are they stereotyped to have?
The question asked about switching races did not say, would you be in favor of AA if you could change your race to black. The purpose was to see if, in fact, there is no white privilege, and no racial oppression in America would you choose to be an African American. Since everything we are discussing is on average, than you have to adopt the profile of the average black not cherry pick the ones with the best home environment and financial security.
I asked my husband the same question, if you could switch places with a black person in America would you do it. It took him all of two seconds to respond no. And no not because he is racist obviously, but because he, as a blonde haired, green-eyed, white male is fully aware of all the privileges he has had throughout his life. He knows many of the opportunities he has been given have been a result of the color of his skin. He cited for example the mistakes he made as a teen, like parties drinking etc., if he had been black, it is very likely he would have gone to jail, or maybe he would have been dead. When he was in trouble, his lawyer father would not have received those courtesy calls that got him out of sticky situations, police officers would not have been patient with him and his friends disrespect and underage drinking. He is well aware that with half black children he will have to explain to his son that in tough situations he must relinquish his rights and keep his mouth shut if only to ensure he does not become a victim of police brutality.
-I have never implied that whites and ORMs must pay the price for a culture. Seriously, this is becoming exhausting. Let’s look at a different angle when one ORM, X is chosen over another Y because X had a harder life and lower grades do you say it is unfair that Y must suffer the consequences of X having a harder life because Y has higher stats. Or is this situation okay? Do you realize this situation happens more often than the URMs being accepted with lower stats?
- I never said my experience in high school justifies AA, I’m not sure where you got that. The point was 1. Every minority high school is not like yours where the teacher’s smile is sunshine, and it’s always raining opportunities. You implied that your experience is what the minority high school experience is like and educational disparities do not exist, which has been proven false in many studies… Furthermore it was to illustrate that my husband, a white male, thought that our high school was amazing, helpful teachers, etc. and I did not have that same experience and that it is directly related to the racial group we belonged to. So your perspective, as a non-URM of your school, is just that, one perspective, of one school, it is in no ways grounds to dismiss the existence of unequal education. Now you further imply that the Chinese kid worked harder than I did. Well that’s not always the case either. For example, I was removed out of my AP Lit class and placed in another after I proved to my administrator that my teacher was being unduly critical of all of my work, giving me C’s on papers, continuously telling me during class that she had no clue how I expected to even score a 1 on the test. The very same teacher that on the first day of the year insisted I must have come to the wrong class, repeating “this is AP Lit, are you sure”, even requesting a printout from the guidance office showing that the class was on my schedule, yet everyone else walked in and seated themselves without a question. When she threatened to fail me due to my “poor writing” in early spring I had enough. Low and behold after taking the test a few weeks later I get a 5 on my AP Lit, and AP Lang (though I never took the AP Lang course). I can guarantee you I had to work harder than my white peers in that class, and in many others in my education. Is this the experience of every minority? Probably not, but you just made a baseless assumption. It’s likely if I depended on her, my educator, I would not have performed well on the test later, making prejudice a direct cause of poor academic success.
- Making negative assumptions and judgments in “general terms”, is the definition of stereotyping and prejudice.
-You are a medical student, and you have concluded that the healthcare system is broken because- it is Obama’s fault. I guess it was perfect prior to ACA, or are you just trying to be brief here? Surely this is not serious. I am referring to the underserved, healthcare disparities, etc.
-I think I see a common thread here, you think the judicial system is near perfect, that social expectations are non-issues (Yikes to the plight of the LGBTQ community in this country, why are they complaining? The law is there to support the sovereign individual o.0), and we are “95% more accepting” (source please) than the rest of the world. Of course you would believe we also have racial equality, educational equality…. Why aren’t we singing Kumbayah yet?
-I don’t believe you know anything about me to know whether I fight for the rights of Native Americans. Or why you would assume I don’t care about Native Americans because I don’t share their ethnicity… projecting perhaps. Sorry to break it to you but I wholeheartedly support policy that will improve the livelihood of Native Americans. I do not believe in reservations in the manner in which they have be preserved, but I also do not believe that they should be forced to assimilate with the general population if they do not want to. “Fighting to get their land back” is impractical at this point, because as you can see the continent is fully settled and Native Americans rightfully settled this land from coast to coast. I do, however, believe that healthcare disparities, educational inequalities, the lack of proper housing and facilities on reservations, and the lack of access to technology are critical issues that must be addressed. I believe in creating opportunities for all disadvantaged groups, and am actively working on addressing those issues for all minorities. (Though my research is more centered on immigrant populations)
-“It is not hard to be completely disgusted by the fact that you are willing to reject an ORM or white person from something just because of his skin colour.” An ORM student is not rejected because of his race. He is rejected because there are many more applicants than there are seats and it is a seller’s market. A URM student may be granted admission because of the value they add as a URM to a stated mission/goal. The acceptance of one does not equate the rejection of the other. If an applicant was favored because they spoke Spanish, were all the other applicants who were rejected, rejected simply because they did not speak Spanish? No, they were rejected because what ever they possessed did not add something being sought in creating a class. There are many, many factors taken into account, an ORM student is not rejected simply for being ORM, otherwise there would be no ORM students.
-“It's also funny how youre playing off professional athletes as victims too, now LOL.” You inserted an illogical argument where it did not belong; I informed you that the history of sports in America is one of exploitation of minorities. You insist they are “given” their dominance in sports, a meritocracy, yet they are not. Don’t be affronted by the fact that there are no parallels in this argument to professional sports. Professional athletes are no longer victims, the fact remains that exploitation have pushed African Americans into sports, since you did not seem to understand where there representation came from… I do not choose what is merit-based or not. Reading comprehension is useful here. I made an observation of what IS and what IS NOT. Comparing apples to oranges proves nothing because they are not the same. Making medicine a meritocracy would not produce a physician force that most of us would care to see. The more holistic the admissions process is the better physician force will be produced.
The point with the fairy god-mother is the fact that you invoked that minorities are “given the opportunity to dominate sports”, no one has said Asians are given the opportunity to dominate medicine, that is seriously illogical. Not sure how you don’t see fallacy in such a statement.
-You as a medical student, cannot define what the most important aspect of being a physician is, you are not a physician, so perhaps continue to educate yourself first.
